At 89, Shin Goo to Join Park Geun-hyung for Donation Performance While Wearing a Pacemaker

Veteran Korean actors Shin Goo and Park Geun-hyung will take the stage for a donation performance designed to support young theater artists.

On June 2, performance production company Park Company announced that the play The Merchant of Venice has confirmed four additional performances. Among them, the July 11 performance will be held as a special event titled the “Theater Tomorrow Fund Donation Performance.” Ticket reservations for the added shows will open at 2 p.m. on June 8.

All revenue from tickets for that performance, along with the full amount raised through on-site donations, will be used for projects supporting young and emerging theater actors. The event is being positioned not simply as an extra performance, but as a stage where audience support will be connected directly to the next generation of theater artists.

Young actors Park Seung-jae, Eom Hyeon-su, Kim Yun-ji, Lee Jun-il, Ju Hong and others, who came from the donation project, will appear in this performance. The occasion carries added meaning because new actors who grew through a support program created by senior artists will now share the same stage with those established performers.

At a press conference held in April, Park Geun-hyung said he had thought about how to return the love received through the production of Waiting for Godot. He also said that if The Merchant of Venice received a great deal of love, the team had promised to hold another donation performance. With the newly announced event, that promise is now being kept.

Based on Shakespeare’s original work, The Merchant of Venice centers on a contract involving “one pound of flesh” and deals with themes including law and justice, mercy and revenge, and human dignity. Oh Gyeong-taek is responsible for the adaptation and direction.

The cast includes Park Geun-hyung, Shin Goo, Lee Seung-ju, Kai, Choi Soo-young, Won Jin-a, Lee Sang-yun, Kim Seul-gi, Kim A-young, Park Myeong-hun and Cho Dal-hwan. The production will run from July 8 through August 9 at the Haeoreum Theater of the National Theater of Korea in Jung-gu, Seoul.

Shin Goo is 89 years old this year, while Park Geun-hyung is 85. Shin Goo in particular has continued his theater work even after having an artificial heart pacemaker implanted.