PERSONAL AND FAMILY BACKGROUND

What was your first job? My first professional job was as an understudy in the Huntington Theatre Production of Woman Warrior. Sometimes I really believe someone up above was looking out for me, because my first show I met my mentor, Soon Tek Oh, the first Korean American who actually supported my path as a performer. How did you decide to become a professional actor? Singing in the Choir and doing it for a living is something very different. I kept singing and performing throughout high school into college as a “hobby”. In my second year of performing with my college group, the New Virginians, I found myself traveling into small towns all along the South. Seriously, some of these little towns felt just one step up from “Deliverance” with the haunting sound of banjos and burning Orientals whispering in the mountains. I would see familiar looks of “you don’t belong here”. But as I took the stage, and sang a few solos, I found myself connecting with strangers. I sang about love, about loss, all those universal experiences that make us more than white or yellow. And something remarkable would happen after each show, those same folks who met me with strange looks would look applaud me as a friend. For a moment I was just like them, I had crossed some imaginary boundary of color and stood next to them as another person who felt the same pains they felt, hurt the same hurts. There was power there. How did your family view what you did? We had a really rough period when I left my job in advertising to go back to school for musical theatre. It wasn’t something Koreans did, and especially not the first-born son. I remember lots of emotion on all sides, lots of hurt feelings, it’s a painful memory to say the least. What is the worst story you have about your family’s reaction? I had just told my parents after dinner. We spent the next three hours screaming about it. I couldn’t stay home, so I drove back to Richmond where I had just quit my job in advertising. A week later my Father had a stroke. My Family never blamed me for that. I do. I have spent that time trying to prove to my Family that my decision was the right one. That the Father I had known for most of my life as the heart of my Family was not ‘broken’ for a little dream that ended in nothing.

What made you start performing?
This isn’t a real easy answer. I spent much of my young adult life trying to find my place in America. Growing up in the South as one of maybe 3 Asian families and I struggled with who I was. I found comfort in singing and was good enough to join different Choirs and school jazz groups, etc. This was life altering, because when I found music, I belonged. I had tried to fit in as an athlete, and it had not worked out quite as well.

When I was on the football team , we won the regional championship. To celebrate the team went to the local pizza parlor and had a dinner. In that excitement I felt like I belonged, I didn’t realize that the team decided to throw a ‘special’ party just for me.

In the South there is a tradition called a blanket party. One person is the “blanketee” and the rest of the group, the “blanketor”. The blanketee is invited out to a special area and the blanketors get together and surprise him by jumping on him and beating the living crap out of him. I was the ‘blanketee’ in this little party and what made it worse was, my 2 young sisters were there watching.

I am not sure if I fought back or not, the physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional trauma. I was devastated. My trust in my fellow students was gone.

Two months later I got the lead solo in the Christmas concert. All I remember about that week before the concert was thinking to myself - this was another cruel joke set up by my “friends”.

My circle of mistrust also included my teachers. I didn’t even bother to learn the words to "Silent Night." Just before the performance, the Choir Director looked at me and asked if I was ready. I started to walk out of the choir room I thought “maybe this time it will be okay” . I scribbled the words onto a small piece of paper.

After the concert, there was only applause and my proud Mother watching the cheers of over three hundred audience members. I never felt that kind of joy. It was a kind of high I had never experienced. So I think I got into it by kind of a fluke, but I stayed because of the joy.

When you went to Conservatory, what was your greatest lesson?
Despite what anyone tells you, keep working, keep learning, and keep trying. You have to train, you have to continue to read and learn. No one hands anything to you, so above all be prepared. If someone asks you about a play, you’d better have read it. A book – same thing. Theater is a game that is played in the heart and the mind, so those that are passionate about it, who have a thirst for it – those are the ones that succeed in my opinion.

How were you viewed at Conservatory – were you the only Asian American?
I was the first Asian Male at the Conservatory and there was another Asian female in the undergraduate program. I don’t think they knew what to do with me. Which actually was in my favor - cause no one tried to turn me into the next KING in the "King and I". They allowed me to develop in a non- traditional casting world. I got to play everything but the King and I and Miss Saigon.

How did you transition to Artistic Director?
By accident. I was introduced to Doris Chu in Boston while I was performing in Woman Warrior and going to the Boston Conservatory. We found common ideals and found that she was looking to start an Asian American Theatre Company. I had just finished a class on Tennessee Williams and really wanted to direct the play Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. So we got together and formed the theatre company.

I was in my first year at the Conservatory and found myself gravitating to the directing classes and found the theatre company a perfect opportunity to stretch my directing muscles. I tackled the constraints of non- profit management as if it was a business and the model worked. We successfully grew from no funding and no name recognition into a well-funded organization with money in the bank in my first three years as the AD.

Can you trace your journey throughout all the companies you have founded?
I was the founding Artistic Director of Asia on Stage in Boston. I then left for San Diego where I was a director in Residence for the San Diego Asian American Repertory Theater. I heard about the national search for an Artistic Director in Seattle for the Northwest Asian American Theater, was chosen, and moved to the Northwest. After two years in Seattle I was looking for a change of pace. Soon Tek Oh contacted me and asked me to come down to Los Angeles. I took a meeting with him and the founding members of his group, the Society of Heritage Performers. That’s when I reconnected with Philip W. Chung and Tim Lounibos and found that we had like aesthetics and was looking to do something different in Los Angeles. All the planets aligned and we formed Lodestone Theatre Ensemble.

What are your goals?
To win an Academy Award as an Actor, and a Tony Award as a Director.

What made a set run by Teddy Zee and Michael Kang different from any other?
It was one of the most relaxed and entertaining movie shoot I’ve ever been on. I loved working with both of them. Teddy is a hands on Producer who maintained a slick and well run set with a great crew, and Michael, well Michael is a great director for an actor. I could not have asked for a nicer guy to work with who knew exactly how to get what he wanted while still letting you be creative. I would work for those guys any day.

Did you enjoy working with John Cho?
Watching him make sense of the words and finding the humor was a reminder that there are exceptional actors out there who happen to be Asian. He has a fantastic energy and drive, and even though he’d be embarrassed to hear me say it, he’s kind of inspiring.

Tell us about the NBC directing opportunity.
Very exciting. I have been asked to direct scenes for their Diversity Showcase. They’ve been auditioning actors, and getting scenes from writers in their Diversity programs, so it is a thrill to be asked. I’ll get to work with Sheldon Epps from the South Coast Rep, an internationally recognized theatre director. Theater is one of those things where getting guidance from someone who has fought similar fights with great success is key. When they said Sheldon Epps, I was ‘in’, he is someone I can really learn from. I also get to showcase my skills with all the executives at NBC and hopefully continue my directing career in television.

What else are you working on in film?
I’ve shot a short, POLLEN, written by Nic Cha Kim. Currently I’m working with a very talented writer, Dennis Hensley, on a TV pilot called Screening Party. Dennis wrote on Lovespring International, and this is a pilot script that is based on his book by the same name. It’s a multi-camera shoot with a great cast, and it’s going to be awesome.

How did you meet your wife and did that change how you view Asian Americans in the Arts?
I met my wife, Erin Quill, at a Lodestone play called Freakstorm. At the time, she was the Vice Chair of the Asian American Sub Committee at SAG, and she was a friend of Ray Chang – who was also in it. I came out of the theater and saw her and that was it for me. We just celebrated our one year anniversary.

One of the ways meeting her has changed me is that she is very talented, studied at a great conservatory – Carnegie Mellon, she’s from New York, she’s been on Broadway, so her standards for performance and theater are high. She has a fantastic eye and whether we work together or not, I love to hear what she has to say. She’s never afraid to voice an opinion, basically, she demands more – of everyone. She really doesn’t care what you call yourself, what your ‘label’ is, she just expects everyone to push like hell every day and to try and be the best they can be. Her whole Family is like that, it’s fantastic. I love to watch her work.

Erin May Ling Quill - Read more about Chil Kong's wife by clicking HERE.

She has an amazing support system both in NY and LA of funny, artistic, and inspiring people that it is a pleasure to be around and who have welcomed me. To hear all their opinions, the repartee, is fascinating and it opens your mind. Plus, she is my biggest supporter, which inspires me.

If you looked around what are your hopes for the future?
To do great work. To continue to work with people who are inspiring, and to choose projects that are both entertaining and contribute a little something to the "Community."

I’m very encouraged by this mid term election, it signifies to me that the "Country" is not as polarized as I thought, and where there is hope, there is art. I look at the television landscape and I think things are getting better – seeing Daniel Dae Kim, Masi Oka, John, James K. Lee, Gwen Yeo, Grace Park – that is all amazing stuff, it’s very, very hopeful right now. Also, I’d love to get a Hybrid SUV. That would be cool, a green machine. Save the planet. (Note: To check out Chil's work on the Internet, click HERE.)

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