Esther K. Chae

Esther K. Chae is an international award-winning actor/writer and academic based in Los Angeles and New York. Her artistic work has been seen and heard in the US, Korea, Ireland, Australia, Canada and Russia. Her numerous credits as a performer include TV shows NCIS, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The West Wing, The Shield, ER; and theatre stages such as Yale Repertory Theater, La Mama, Mark Taper Forum/ Kirk Douglas Theater, East West Players, P.S. 122, CUNY/Martin Segal Theater and Harvard/A.R.T.

Chae’s performances have been lauded as “talented” (Variety), “engaging” (Hollywood Reporter) – and may just “break your heart” (Asia Pacific Arts). Her life in Hollywood has been featured in a Korean Broadcasting Station (KBS) documentary.

Her solo performance So the Arrow Flies, about a North Korean spy and the Korean-American FBI Agent who pursues her, was featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (“a powerful and compelling script… fascinatingly gripping-ThreeWeeks Magazine), Ars Nova Theater Festival (NY) and the World Women’s Forum (Seoul) in 2008. This year it has been invited to TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference of which she is an inaugural fellow, CUNY’s Martin Segal Theater and NYU’s Performance Studies. The play is being adapted into a feature film script.

Chae graduated from the Yale School of Drama with an MFA in Acting, the University of Michigan with an MA in Theater Studies, and Korea University. Believing strongly in the concept of inspirational education, Chae has taught and lectured at NYU's Tisch Performance Studies (mentor Anna Deavere Smith’s class), Yale School of Drama, USC, University of Baltimore, Maryland and Cal State San Marcos. She is a TED and USC NetKAL fellow and invited speaker at the 2008 International Women’s World Forum in Seoul.

She is a certified stage combatant, trained in Korean Drum and Mask dance and is proud to have trekked the Himalayan mountains (India, 4100m)- despite the altitude sickness.