Ella Talerico, Studio’s Artistic Producing Fellow, interviewed Jesse Jae Hoon, playwright of Do You Think I’m Annoying? which will be featured in the inaugural New Pages, New Stages Festival.
ELLA: So how did you fall in love with playwriting?
JESSE: I’ve always loved theater. But I really fell in love with playwriting it in my late twenties. After graduating, I worked in new play development as an actor and got to watch writers like Julia May Jonas develop work over several years. It was deeply inspiring.
ELLA: What do you enjoy specifically about the craft?
JESSE: Plays aren’t bound to one narrative structure. Every play demands its own form based on its themes and characters. I see playwriting as the most expansive and imaginative narrative art. Industry and institutional limits aside, theater remains one of the most egalitarian and pure forms of artistry we have. Other art forms are increasingly shaped by corporate ownership.
As a political writer, I write because I have something to say. Theater lets me be provocative and incisive in ways that film and TV, monopolized by corporate interests, often can’t. There’s hierarchy and censorship in theater too, but it’s inherently more democratic.
ELLA: What themes do you return to in your work?
JESSE: I’m always thinking about global capitalism and imperialism. America is intensely individualistic—that’s capitalism’s nature. With my plays, I want to reignite collectivist thought, which is heavily repressed here. As someone who wants this country to move toward socialism, I believe narrative art can teach new ways of thinking while still being entertaining and moving.
In playwriting, there is a fear around being “didactic.” There’s a desire to “ask more questions than you answer.” I don’t subscribe to that. I think equating neutrality with artistic quality is a mistake. We shouldn’t fear “taking a side.” I believe I have a responsibility to be declarative and clear.
More recently, I’ve been writing about the Korean adoption industry, which recent scholarship has shown functions as a massive human trafficking ring. It’s deeply tied to imperialism and global extraction for U.S. profit.
ELLA: If everyone knew your work, what would be different?
JESSE: I hope there’d be a movement toward organized working-class resistance against capitalism and U.S. imperialism. I want audiences to leave curious about alternative politics. Even now, we’re hearing public figures talk about collectivism again. I think that’s the way out of exploitative systems. I want audiences to understand what low-wage work actually does to people psychologically; they can’t function as human beings because corporations regiment them so aggressively.
With Do You Think I’m Annoying? I want audiences to understand that the Korean adoption system isn’t about “saving” children. It’s about profit, family separation, and extraction. America is a heavily propagandized nation, and I hope my work makes a small dent in that steady stream of propaganda.
ELLA: What inspired Do You Think I’m Annoying?
JESSE: It started with the title—it’s a sentence that loops in my head. I have relationship OCD, which means I’m constantly afraid my friends hate me. I wrote the play before I was “out of the fog,” an adoptee expression for coming into a different consciousness than the adoption narratives we’re brought up with.
It began as a relationship play between two Korean adoptees but grew into an exploration of the long-term psychological effects of adoption, specifically the effects of that ambiguous loss and the erasure of culture and identity has on a person. I also found overlap with my Jewish identity, especially being alienated from mainstream spaces for being pro-Palestine.
The throughline between both identities is a fear of abandonment and ostracization. There’s also this feeling of finding community and solidarity through shared experiences of oppression.
ELLA: What do you hope to learn from this new draft?
JESSE: Rhythm. The characters talk as fast as I think. Our goal is to make it legible without losing that energy. I’m excited to see how audiences engage with it.
ELLA: Anything else you’d like to share?
JESSE: I’m grateful to Theater J, Studio, Haley, and my collaborator Shannon, as well as all the adoptees and the Palestine movement. It means a lot to share this work in D.C.