This was no ordinary show. Before the show began, actors came on stage to greet the audience and explain the props and instruments placed on the stage and even gave a pop quiz about the performance. This was a traditional Korean musical for children called “The Tiger with White Eyebrows.”

This musical was just a part of the 10th ASSITEJ Korea Winter Festival, which was held in Daehang-no, Seoul’s iconic theater district, from January 3rd through 12th. The celebration of performing arts featured seven plays and musicals produced by leading children’s theater companies in Korea. Here’s Director Kim Sook-hee of ASSITEJ Korea to explain more about the organization and festival.

ASSITEJ is short for Association Internationale du Theatre pour l’Enfance and Jeunesse, which means the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People. It’s in French, because when ASSITEJ was under UNESCO, its headquarters was in Paris. We select the best productions we’ve staged in the past year for the winter festival and give the Children’s Play Award to the best of the best. So the ASSITEJ Winter Festival is a festivity as well as a contest.

Ever since it was founded in Paris in 1965, ASSITEJ drew theater companies from all over the world. Currently, the association has more than three thousand artists from 86 countries as its members. Korea joined ASSITEJ in 1984 and it is the only country that holds two festivals annually – once in the spring and once in the fall – to spur on the growth of theater plays for young people. Here’s Director Kim Sook-hee of ASSITEJ Korea once again.



There are 86 member nations and most of them host festivals only once a year. Korea is the only member that holds two in one year. It’s been 23 years since we’ve held summer festivals and 10 years for winter festivals. The one in summer is an international gathering, where most of the participants are from overseas. I hope that Korean children and teenagers will come to such festivals to learn about other people’s emotions.

What did the 10th ASSITEJ Korea Winter Festival have in store for Korean youngsters? Here’s ASSITEJ Deputy Secretary-General Do Sang-won도상원 to tell us more about the festival.

We made some changes to the festival to mark the 10th anniversary. In past winter festivals, we used to host some experimental theater plays and overseas productions, but this year we chose only domestic productions which were deemed the year’s best. It’s important to choose fun and happy plays, since the plays and musicals are geared toward children, but we thought it would also be important to teach them social issues and educational topics in an entertaining and accurate manner. So this year’s selection dealt with school violence, comfort women, and the demilitarized zone, among others. These are all productions worth seeing.

“Gaettong개똥 over the Mountain & Berlin Gaettong” showed the reality of a divided nation, while “Barefoot Land” spoke of peace through the stories of Dori and Tori, who live in the demilitarized zone. “Flower Grandmother” is a heartbreaking story about a girl who was forced into sexual slavery during World War II and “Teenager’s Cruel Story” made the issue of school violence easier to understand by rendering it into a rock musical. Now let’s go see these wonderful plays showcased in the 10th ASSITEJ Korea Winter Festival.

Dae-sung 대성, who begs his mother for a younger sibling, is the lead character in a play called “Brush Storm.” Dae-sung is always lonely, because he has no one to play with. He only has his parents, a grandmother, and a puppy named Dalbong. It’s not surprising that the boy wants a brother. Here’s Mr. Lee Gil-jun이길준 of Hakdangsae학당새 Theater Company.

The play is about a boy who desperately wants a brother. His mother works, so she doesn’t have time to have another baby, but the boy’s fervent prayers make the wish come true. The play shows if you want something bad enough, it will come true.

“Brush Storm” is not just a play, but resembles an art exhibition in some aspects, because Korea and western-style paintings and various sculptures suitable for each situation appear on stage.

These artistic props appear when Dae-sung embarks on an adventure to find out the secrets to getting a brother.

Dae-sung’s earnest prayers bring him not one, but three brothers.

The play teaches young children that if they wish for something with all their hearts, their wish will come true.

In “Tiger with White Eyebrows” old tales are told in pansori, Korea’s traditional vocal and percussion music. The main character is a thousand-year-old tiger.

The musical is magical enough to stimulate children’s imagination with a story that when the tiger’s white eyebrows touch a person the tiger can read the person’s mind. The tiger had been disappointed after reading the minds of several adults, but he gets a chance to look into the heart of a child.

The tiger only sees innocence no matter how deeply he penetrates the child’s mind. Only then does the tiger shed his terrifying expression.

The tiger which had behaved ferociously toward adults became as meek as a lamb in front of a child. Through this story children realize that they have the purest souls. Here’s Director Kim Mi-jung김미정 of the production company Taroo.

The story is about a thousand-year-old tiger with white eyebrows, which discovers purity and honesty inside a child’s heart. The musical teaches a lesson about innocence and shows adults why they should be more child-like, but that’s not all. The musical doesn’t tell children how they should live, but wants them to realize that their pure and honest hearts are the most beautiful and wisest things in the world. I wanted children to feel positive about themselves.

“The Tiger with White Eyebrows” featured a pansori singer to lend the production an atmosphere of folklore. The musical was presented as if the young audiences were listening to their grandparents telling a fairytale. Here’s the show’s director Kim Mi-jung again.

The play features a pansori singer as a storyteller. It’s different from showing everything about a story on stage. This format allows children to use their imaginations to fill the parts of the story not presented as a visual play. Children get to picture what the scenes would look like in their heads.

The audience cannot take their eyes off the stage, as an imaginary tiger comes to life in front of them and a pansori singer spins the tale.

(Boy 1) It was interesting seeing new musical instruments and hearing new sounds.
(Woman 1) The tiger could rest in the mountain because he saw only bad things in the world. But he said he could now rest in peace since he’d seen the innocence of children. To me, that was the most touching part of the play.
(Woman 2) There are many children’s plays, but most of them just feature songs and cartoony characters and overly simple storylines. But this musical is based on Korean traditional music, so I saw it twice. They even gave us music scores so that we could sing along. It was very nice.

Theater company Noori’s “Bluebird” production is based on the play “The Blue Bird” by Maurice Maeterlinck. The Korean version is a fantasy adventure geared toward the younger audience. One sleepless night, the main character named Mitil crosses over a small portal to enter a world of fantasy. There, different doors lead to many wonderful places, such as the land of happiness, the land of imagination, and land of forests. Mitil meets various characters, both kind-hearted and evil-spirited, and through his adventures children realize at the end that happiness is found not in faraway places, but right where they live.

Ingenious stage settings transform the familiar fairytale into a wonderland we’ve never seen before. Director Lee Guk-hee이국희 of Theater Company Noori, who directed the play says seeing children leave the theater with big, happy smiles on their faces is all the motivation he needs to keep working in children’s plays.

I know it’s difficult in this world, but I hope children will have hopes and dreams they can cherish. This wish of mine has been expressed in a form of stage play. I keep directing children’s plays with the hope that many Korean children will get to reach for their dreams and let their imaginations go wild.

Since this festival for children and teenagers takes place twice a year, the standards of local theater companies have risen and the quality of their productions has improved greatly. Pioneering works are accomplished in plot development, stage arrangement, and acting. When she sees such vast improvements in many fronts, Director Kim Sook-hee of ASSITEJ finds all the hard work that goes into hosting the festival is worth it.

There are not that many stage productions for children and adolescents in Asia, because traditionally Asians haven’t had much respect for children. But I realized that some of the plays that made it to the ASSITEJ winter festivals in Korea are very high in quality. So I want the festival to provide a venue for not only established theater companies, but also up-and-coming troupes to put on inspirational productions.

Such high hopes motivate festival participants to bring their best works and feel more responsible toward the people coming to see their shows. Here’s Director Lee Guk-hee of Theater Company Noori.

ASSITEJ is at the forefront of Korea’s attempt to energize the stage play genre. Today’s children will become the society’s driving force ten years down the road, so now is the time to instill good values in them and ASSITEJ is in the position to do so. That is why the performances shown during the ASSITEJ festivals are important. I believe ASSITEJ is on the frontline carrying out those missions.

It’s been 30 years since Korea became a member of ASSITEJ. During that time Korea has become an Asian authority in children’s play by hosting over 30 festivals. Enlightening and entertaining plays are ASSITEJ’s gift to the future generation.