BACT Blogger Genevieve Interviews Min Kahng

Our special guest blogger Genevieve is back! Genevieve is now ten years old and in the fourth grade at Kensington Hilltop School. She attended her first live theater performance at three years old. Genevieve also enjoys acting, particularly in musicals, playing the piano, writing, reading, traveling, and playing sports with her friends. She lives in Kensington with her parents and two younger siblings.
If you are age 9 and up and want to write a blog about your experience with BACT, email nina@bactheatre.org.

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My Interview of Min Kahng
By Genevieve, Age 10

I got lucky enough to interview Min Kahng, the playwright of the new and wonderful BACT production, The Tales of Olympus: A Greek Myth Musical. I was so excited to hear I could interview him! I really enjoyed the play. I loved all the songs and the funny lines. Min is a great writer and based some of the main ideas on his own childhood life.

The mortal character, Jason, learns an important lesson about trusting himself while he is taught some classic Greek mythology from a few of the more famous Greek Gods. The character of Athena was a know-it-all and she seemed true to my imagination of her behavior. Aphrodite was very graceful and it was funny when the Gods were arguing and she sang her song which made everyone’s thoughts turn to love. Calliope was bossy and caring and Zeus showed his power in many funny ways.

Playwright/composer Min Kahng playing Hermes

The costumes were creative and they used many small props to help the audience understand the stories. Min Kahng probably did not know that nearly all of my fourth grade friends are very into Greek myths when he and Nina, the Executive Director of BACT, got together to think about the theme of their next play. Nina suggested Greek myths and Min liked the idea because of his great elementary school teacher who taught him how exciting Greek myths were by having him and his classmates act out the stories.

After he knew what he was writing about, he needed a deadline. He started in the spring and had the script mostly ready for a workshop in June 2012. A workshop is a time when acting businesses hire actors to read out loud the script to make sure that the lines work and the story makes sense. Then, in between June and October, Min had to revise the script and lyrics to be sure they were ready and perfect to start rehearsing with the real actors.

Min was also hired to be the musical director of the production, so he helped the actors on their solos and harmonies. Also, he would stay around at rehearsals to make sure the lines made sense and did not need to be adjusted. Min did not entirely memorize the lines of the actors, but knew the basic arch of the story. For example, when I saw the play, something happened to Jonathon Brooks, the actor playing Hermes, and Min took his part and did very well.

Min works on short plays and songs in his spare time. Some of his plays are The Song of the Nightingale, Bust, The Plans of Theodore Crumb, and some BACT teen plays, Café Broadway and Beasts of I’m very grateful to Min for spending some time with me so I could do this interesting interview with him! I am also thankful for the great cast who put on the play and made it wonderful!