People

Hyesung supports the faculty of the Performing and Visual Arts (PVA) department, which includes, in addition to theater, popular programs in music (chamber music, glee club, guitar, jazz bands, orchestra, wind orchestra) and the visual arts (ceramics, drawing and painting, silkscreening and silk painting).

A Korean-born flutist, Dr. Hyesung Choe Park, is the winner of the 2007 National Flute Association’s Young Artists Competition and the first and only recipient of the Artist’s Certificate in the woodwind department of the Eastman School of Music. Hyesung has performed actively in the United State, South Korea, and Eastern Europe as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber/orchestral musician.

Besides being a former principal flutist at San Antonio Symphony, Hyesung has won numerous awards and competitions, including Byron Hester International Flute Competition, Aspen Music Festival Woodwind Concerto Competition, Korean National Flute Association Competition, Dong-ah Music Competition to name a few. She has performed as a soloist with various orchestras including Sarajevo National Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Orchestra, Eastman Philharmonia, and Seoul Arts Orchestra. Her performance with Grammy Award-winner, Ying Quartet in Sanibel Island Music Festival was broadcast nationally in the US and her flute playing can be heard in Amazon’s TV series “Mozart in the Jungle.”

At Caltech, Hyesung has been serving as a visiting artist teaching chamber music and flute choir since 2011.

Cole is Affiliate Artist with TACIT, assisting and supporting the department in numerous capacities. He received his PhD in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), studying intersections of science communication, performance theory, and theater studies. He earned a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of Minnesota with a focus in directing. Cole has directed and performed in numerous productions and workshops with UCSB, the University of Minnesota, Theater Latté Da (Minneapolis), and Theater Arts Caltech. He has also served as dramaturg for Ensemble Theater Company (Santa Barbara).

A director, actor, playwright, and composer, Cole has experience and training in both scripted and devised work. He is particularly interested in bringing together scientific and artistic communities through the creation and staging of theatrical works that uncover the underlying connections that theatre and science share as parallel manifestations of human creativity and complementary modes of understanding. In his work, Cole also explores the ways in which new media and technology can revolutionize live performance.

Cole has also co-written and composed original musicals. Boldly Go!, which parodies both Star Trek and musical theatre, premiered with a sold-out run as the mainstage show at Caltech in 2016; he served as Assistant Director and performed in the role of Spock. From the Earth to the Moon, based on the Jules Verne novel, premiered at Caltech in 2022; Cole assisted in the direction of this production. Earth Data: The Musical also premiered at Caltech, co-created with the cast and crew, as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art and Science Collide festival in 2024.

Visit Cole’s website

Arden co-founded MACH 33: The Caltech Festival of New Science-Driven Plays in 2013, and currently serves as the Associate Artistic Director of that program. She is also a Theater and English teacher at the Sequoyah High School in Pasadena. She is a member of Caltech Playreaders and the Theatre 100 Collective. She received her PhD in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University, and MAs in Theater Arts and Literature from Villanova University.

Visit Arden’s website