This is a guest post from Philip W. Chung, a writer and co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble. Lodestone’s final production, “Grace Kim & The Spiders From Mars,” runs from Nov. 14 to Dec. 20. Check out Chung’s blog, You Offend Me You Offend My Family.
When we decided that Lodestone Theatre Ensemble would shut down after ten years and that I would be writing what would be our last play, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted our last show to reflect our history and our identity as an Asian American theater company that has always tried to do the type of work you don’t usually see Asian Americans tackling.
Our productions have tended to fall into the “edgy” category. Some of the things that have popped up in our past shows include violence (lots of it), sex (lots of this too), murders, suicides, necrophilia, incest, cannibalism, homicidal clowns with axes, homicidal lesbians who favor dildos as their killing weapon of choice, human fetuses in jars, characters who undergo a sex change to seduce their high school crush, Satan in various guises and the end of America as we know it.
So how do you top all of that? In our case, by producing something that’s edgy for Asian Americans in a completely different way—a traditional screwball romantic comedy that’s appropriate and accessible for all audiences. Think about it—when was the last time you saw an all-Asian American cast in a romantic comedy doing the type of things you normally only see white actors like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn or Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do? If that’s not edgy and different for an Asian American theater company, then I don’t know what is.
Luckily, I already had an idea for such a story that I had wanted to write for many years but never got around to: a play about a witty and wonderfully eccentric Korean American woman named Grace Kim who falls in love with her estranged sister’s fiancé leading to all sorts of (hopefully) hilarious hi-jinks. It would be a story about family and love and beginnings and endings and a bunch of other themes that seemed perfect for our last show. So our final production—”Grace Kim & The Spiders From Mars”—was born.
I loved that title (music aficionados will recognize the tip of the hat to David Bowie whose songs play an integral part in the play) and to me, “Grace Kim” was the perfect name for my quintessential female Korean American protagonist. We all know a Grace Kim. There’s something familiar about that name, but unlike, say, a name like Grace Park which most people have come to associate with one particular person (in this case, the talented star of Battlestar Galactica), there is no such association with Grace Kim. That name truly represents the every Korean American woman. It was perfect.
Well, it was perfect up until last Autumn. I was diligently writing my play when I started getting emails from friends and colleagues that usually went something like this: “Hey, why didn’t you tell me you were writing a play about a Playboy Playmate? Do you need any help with research? LOL.” What the hell were they talking about?
I soon found out when I Googled “Grace Kim.” What popped up in my search wasn’t information about my sure-to-be brilliant play or even some generic Grace Kim living a normal life in Hacienda Heights or Flushing. What popped up was Grace Kim a.k.a. Playboy’s Miss November 2008 a.k.a. Playboy’s first full Korean Playmate a.k.a. the realization that my Grace Kim would now, at best, be second to this other Grace Kim who had prematurely stolen any thunder I would’ve mustered with my artistic awesome-ness. All the promotional materials for Lodestone’s final season had gone out already so I didn’t even have the option to change my title and the name of my protagonist.
So who was this Grace Kim who had so unceremoniously torn away my glory? I decided I needed to investigate this situation further by purchasing the November 2008 issue of Playboy. For purely academic reasons, of course. According to her data sheet, this Grace Kim loved Led Zeppelin (one of my favorites), eating turkey with kimchi on Thanksgiving (again, one of my favorites), guys with shaved heads (hey, I’ve got a shaved head), guys who were creative and funny (hello? Those are my two best traits), her mom (I think a woman who’s close to her mother is incredibly sexy) and playing Rock Band (OK, the only thing sexier than a woman who loves her mother is one who loves to rock n’ roll).
Actually, she sounded kind of cool. But then, the whole point of these things was to make her sound cool, right? To present a beautiful woman who was accessible and like the girl-next-door. But come on—in reality, she had to be a bitch. She was probably a stereotypically superficial and materialistic Korean woman, right? ‘Cause no one can be that perfect.
Wrong. Since that time, I’ve had the good fortune to get to know Grace Kim a.k.a. Playboy’s Miss November 2008 and I have to admit that she is indeed pretty cool. She still has her Playboy-related activities and travels, but she’s also back in grad school studying to become a therapist and works with a number of different charities and nonprofits, especially those reaching out to young women. When she talks about all the things she’s involved in, it’s clear she’s completely genuine and passionate about helping other people. And she’s been supportive of my play as well as my other work. Grace is someone I’ve come to really respect. And yup, she’s also absolutely gorgeous, too.
Friends and colleagues still email or ask me jokingly if Playboy Grace Kim was the “inspiration” for my script. But it doesn’t bother me. If people want to associate my play with this totally hot and awesome chick, who am I to complain?
