top of page
Comfort Women
컴포트 우먼
Official English Title
Posters included in this archive are embedded solely for documentary and educational purposes.
🔗 All images are linked to their original sources or articles. No copyright ownership is claimed.
SOURCE
history
SETTING
Korea
BOOK
original
Survivors of wartime sexual slavery
Korean Premiere
None
Korean Premiere Theatre
None
None
Summary
Korean women subjected to wartime sexual slavery struggle to survive violence and displacement, while later generations fight to preserve their testimony and dignity.
Origin & Development
Created and directed by Dimo Hyun Jun Kim, Comfort Women was developed in New York and presented Off-Broadway. The work was created within the Korean diaspora rather than transferred from an earlier Korean production. Kim wrote the script in 2012 after hearing statements from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe that denied Japan’s responsibility for wartime sexual slavery. Shocked by the ignorance surrounding the issue, Kim set out to dramatize the women’s experiences. He faced difficulties finding collaborators because of the subject’s political sensitivity but eventually brought together American and Korean composers and writers to complete the musical. The team aimed to present multiple perspectives and to humanize all characters, including Japanese soldiers, while focusing on the resilience of the victims.
Partial Synopsis
Korean women subjected to wartime sexual slavery struggle to survive violence and displacement, while later generations fight to preserve their testimony and dignity.
Comfort Women
2015
2015-07-31
to
2015-08-09
Country:
United States
City:
New York
Production Type:
Full Production
Language:
English
Venue:
Theatre at St. Clement’s
Set in 1941, the musical follows Goeun, a young Korean woman lured by the promise of a job in Tokyo and instead taken to Indonesia, where she is forced into sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army. Held captive with other women taken from their homes, she plans an escape with them.
The story draws on survivors’ accounts of the estimated 200,000 women trafficked by the Japanese military into sexual slavery before and during the Second World War.
Comfort Women
2018
2018-07-20
to
2018-09-02
Country:
United States
City:
New York
Production Type:
Full Production
Language:
English
Venue:
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
A return engagement in New York with an Asian director and a multinational cast, presenting the history of the “comfort women” in English to mainstream American theatre audiences. Beyond documenting wartime atrocities, the production focused on the survivors’ dignity, solidarity, and will to survive.
bottom of page