Yong Suk Yoo is an international theater and live performance director and educator who focuses on intercultural and interdisciplinary work and the integration of new media and digital technology into the performing arts. His experimental work includes multimedia theater productions of When Spring Comes to Hills and Dales, Oedipus the King, immersive theater productions of A Dreamplay and Love and Information, and the Korean premiere of Nassim Sloeimanpour's White Rabbit, Red Rabbit. He has also written his own plays, such as A Silent Table, which used live broadcast technology, immersive performance, and four-sided holo-film projection mapping. He is currently an associate professor of directing at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and has previously taught at Texas State University in San Marcos, Daeduk University and Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea.
In 2002, Yong Suk Yoo co-founded the DREAM PLAY THEATER COMPANY (DPTC) with fellow director Jae Yeop Kim. The company was named after Strindberg's A Dreamplay, inspired by the theatrical imagination of Swedish playwright August Strindberg. While serving as an associate representative of DPTC (2002-2008), Yong Suk wrote and directed a number of new Korean contemporary dramas and participated in various independent and cutting-edge theater festivals in Korea, including the Young Director Festival, Seoul Marginal Theater Festival, Seoul Fringe Festival, etc. During this time, Yong Suk also worked with the influential Hyehwadong Il Bunji Theater Laboratory (HIBTL) in Daehangno, Seoul, Korea. His work with HIBTL and his fellow directors there inspired his master's thesis, "A Study of Directors' Group Hyehwadong Il Bunji's Activity: From 1st Term to 3rd Term (1993-2005)," which he completed in 2008. In the same year, he was awarded as the Outstanding Emerging Artist in Theater by the Arts Council of Korea.
While pursuing personal aesthetic values as a director, Yong Suk developed progressive theater in response to public concerns. His plays and productions have been instrumental in revitalizing the value of community-based public art by renovating alternative spaces and launching various independent performances. In 2006, Yong Suk devised an annual independent theater incubation initiative called "Hibernation Project," which DPTC presented to young theater artists in Seoul. The project was so successful that it continues to serve as a platform for many young Korean theater directors.
Yong Suk's experimental, physical performance piece S.T.A.R., which he wrote and directed, premiered at the Seoul Marginal Theater Festival in 2006. Presented to a multicultural family audience, S.T.A.R. was praised for its unique, universal, physical and theatrical languages. Two years later, his work Minority Sport Story 10th Batter toured the capital for over a year with the support of the Seoul Culture Foundation, performing in public libraries, hospitals, and juvenile detention centers.
In 2009, Yong Suk founded the ART CREATION GROUP DIRECTING STUDIO (ACGDS) with five other young artists in the fields of theater, film, playwriting and alternative education. He worked as a representative, producer, director and playwright. In the same year, the Seoul Culture Foundation selected ACGDS as one of six resident art companies at the Seokyo Art Experiment Center (SAC), the first art residency space established by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. ACGDS was the first and only performance group among the residents of SAC. During his residency at SAC from 2009 to 2010, he created various public site-specific performances, alternative space performances, and produced documentary films. Yong Suk is currently working as the artistic director of the performance group WOULD YOU COLLAGE since July 2016.
Throughout his career as a theater artist, Yong Suk Yoo has also taught at various institutes and universities. In 2010, Yong Suk was appointed Professor of Directing and Acting in the School of Arts Department of Acting and Musical Theater at Daeduk University in Daejeon, South Korea. He was the youngest professor in the history of the university, and he took the position to build relationships between students and the professional performing arts field in the mainstream (Seoul). He also used this opportunity to understand various rural performing arts programs where he produced and directed many musical GALA performances and theatrical plays with his students for local communities in Daejeon, Dangjin, and Daegu.
Yong Suk's focus in his art and teaching has led to a mastery of the global contemporary understanding of art, the performing arts, and the ability to engage in interdisciplinary practice that unites more than one field of knowledge. Yong Suk chose to pursue an MFA in directing at the California Institute of the Arts as a key to refining his aesthetic and developing his unique poetic, visual style. He directed Oedipus the King as his studio project, focusing on facilitating the body and space of the actors, using the classic Greek tragedy with a diverse cast. He also directed When Spring Comes to Hills and Dales (American premiere) to create a unique and physical performance with a diverse group of collaborators from other countries using contemporary adapted Korean folk mythology. In 2015, he finally directed A Dreamplay as his thesis production at CalArts, after waiting thirteen years since co-founding DREAM PLAY THEATER COMPANY in 2002. He co-directed the short film Thinker with Taiwanese video designer Hsuan Kuang Hsieh, integrating material performance (puppetry and toy theater) with video design. He directed a black and white short film Running with choreographer Jonathan Bryant and created a cinematic poem "Good Bye" using only objects without human actors.
After graduating from CalArts MFA program in 2015, he returned to Korea. He worked as an adjunct professor at Hanyang University Department of Theatre and Film. He taught a variety of courses, including directing, interactive design, and theatre practicum. He led research and development projects, created new media play therapy systems supported by Korea Creative Content Agency, and "A Case Study on Hybrid Theatrical Design and Technical Direction". His interest in the integration of performing arts and high technology has led him to direct/lead various projects. He directed the Korean premiere of Caryl Churchill's Love and Information as an immersive performance of being in cyberspace. In 2016, as artistic director of the contemporary performance group Would You Collage, he directed a Korean premiere of White Rabbit and Red Rabbit by Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour as an introduction to Korean audiences to the unique form of contemporary post-dramatic performance. He also wrote and directed A Silent Table, using live broadcast technology, immersive performance, and four-sided holo-film projection mapping. In 2017-2018, the Arts Council of Korea and the Korean Performance Producers' Association fully supported this production and selected/awarded it as one of their promising projects.
If Yong Suk's aesthetic is interdisciplinary, his artistic mission is internationalism. Yong strongly believes that diversity, the inherent human need to be valued and respected for who we are in all our differences, is a core value that every theater company, art school, and organization must strive to achieve. In order to further the global opportunity, he believes that artists themselves must drive new perspectives and connections to new avenues of intercultural opportunity, which his own experience has proven.
Yong Suk Yoo is married to Joo Ryoung Kim, a Korean film, TV drama and theater actress of considerable renown, most recently seen as Han Mi-Nyeo (No. 212) in the Netflix series Squid Game, whose artistry continues to inspire him. They have a daughter, Katherine Hayoung Yoo, who was born in California in 2013.