Like most people, I’m finding it hard to process what’s happened in the last few weeks. But on what would have been our closing night, I wanted to talk about Endlings and what it has meant to me.

Opening night at NYTW. Photo by Marcus Middleton.

Celine Song asked me if I wanted to work on a reading of Endlings back in the fall of 2017. I knew Celine from our time at Columbia: after my class’ first weekend presentation, Celine had messaged me on Facebook to congratulate me and ask if I wanted to participate in a lunchtime reading of a new play she was working on. Supremely flattered, I said yes, and had my first experience of playing in one of the intricate and often wild worlds Celine is so adept at creating. I knew in that moment that anytime Celine wanted to work together, I would always say yes. After graduating, I had worked on a couple of readings of her works-in-progress, so I thought I knew what to expect from her writing. Until I read Endlings.

The interweaving of the personal, the political, the ethical, and the theatrical in Endlings was unlike anything I had ever read before. Celine’s work was so profoundly hers. Setting up the parallel between the haenyo divers of South Korea, whose way of life is disappearing, and Celine’s own frustration with the constantly “dying” art of theatre as a Korean emigre writer is powerful on the page. And the major scene I would be involved with—a loving, semi-parodic deconstruction of the “white plays” that dominate our major theatres while keeping certain audiences alienated—was so searingly funny and so brutally insightful that I couldn’t believe my luck at getting to help create it. I jumped at the chance to participate.

“Now there is white tension…” Photo by Chad Bukta.

The in-house reading at The Playwright’s Realm was a joy. I was introduced for the first time to Sammi Cannold, whose easygoing confidence in the rehearsal room set the tone for the challenging work ahead of us. (I’ve learned more about directing from just being in the room with Sammi than I have from some directing classes!) I was looking forward to participating in the public reading, but a conflict with another major job opportunity came up and I had to back out. I was devastated: telling Celine over the phone was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my career. Celine, though, understood what I needed to do, and told me she hoped I’d find my way back to the project someday. When I received the offer for the American Repertory Theatre production in 2019, I wept with joy.

Returning home to the Boston area to bring Endlings to my own community remains one of the high points of my acting career. The folks at the ART were incredible welcoming, and living in Cambridge and getting to commute into Harvard Square for rehearsal every day was a dream come true for an actor who once took the Red Line from his restaurant job to shows at the ART, dreaming of working there someday. The play was well-received by the community, and the closeness of the cast was something I hadn’t experienced since my school days. We all hoped there would be another life for this play, maybe in New York.

A moonlit dive. Photo by Gretjen Helene.

Learning that we would be bringing Endlings to New York Theatre Workshop—a theatre responsible for some of my all-time favorite Off-Broadway work—was yet another dream come true. To be reunited with what now really felt like a family made it all the sweeter. We had a joyous rehearsal process. I even got my first opportunity to do fight choreography in an Off-Broadway theatre! Sammi and the design team adapted the play beautifully to the smaller space, and our preview audiences were electric. We opened triumphantly on March 9th, 2020.

And we closed March 12th.

New York Theatre Workshop did right by us. They paid out our contracts, something for which I will always be grateful. They provided us space to come together and grieve our play about space and what it means. Their role as a community space—so important to their mission—helped us as we let go. Han Sol, in the final scene of Endlings, tells the playwright, “It is time now to finish the play.” We weren’t expecting the “now” we got. But isn’t what is so beautiful about theatre the fact that we know that “now” is coming someday anyway, and we keep moving forward in spite of it?

I’m still grieving. But I will be forever grateful to Celine, to Sammi, to the incredible cast and crew, and to the theatres who gave us their real estate (real estate real estate) for a little while to build this beautiful world.

Endlings rules. Endlings forever.

Endlings rules. Endlings forever.