Grand Prize Winner,

National Theater Company of Korea (NTCK) Playwriting Competition 2024

Judge’s Comments

"A landmark work of Korean theatre, forged from sweeping imagination and richly layered narrative."

"A boldly original imagination moving fluidly between reality and myth, offering audiences an entirely new theatrical experience."

"A bold work that turns the constraints of stage realisation into new possibility."

— Judges' Citation, NTCK Playwriting Competition 2024

"A door opened in the floor, like a window."

Her ordinary life crumbling, Inanna had lost even her reason to live.

At that very moment, as her house is torn down,

a door to an unfamiliar underworld opens beneath the floor — and there she encounters beings who live on in strange forms, in a time long forgotten.

The first fruit of the NTCK Playwriting Competition, revived after fifteen years! Having journeyed from open call through staged reading to full production,

NTCK's creative development process now meets its audience.

Since its founding in 1957, the NTCK Playwriting Competition has discovered

landmark plays and playwrights in Korean theatre history —including <A Family> and <Manseon: The Yearning of a Fisherman> — carrying forward the tradition of new Korean playwriting.

<Under the floor> is the first Grand Prize winner since the competition's revival after fifteen years.

Selected from 303 entries, the play now reaches audiences as a full production, shaped through creative development and a staged reading.

In NTCK's ongoing journey of creative development — discovering new possibilities for Korean theatre and bringing them to the stage —

<Under the floor> carries forward the legacy of new Korean playwriting.

SYNOPSIS

Inanna, on the verge of giving up on life, enters an unknown underworld beneath the floor as her house collapses around her —alongside Dub, a clay tablet.

It is a vast house where the lost and the forgotten dwell together, and home to Kigal, a mysterious pool where all memory fades into oblivion.

There, Inanna meets family members transformed into unbelievable, unfamiliar shapes: Grandma Pocket, roots growing from her body;

her sister Pink, standing on all fours with a hammer slung over her shoulder; and Boulder, gradually turning to stone.

Unable to fully remember one another, they inflict deep wounds instead.

However, when Inanna's mother, Eresh, wakes from deep within the underworld, clues to the family's forgotten secrets and past begin to slowly emerge…

NTCK Playwriting Competition

To expand the diversity of Korean theatre and discover works that move audiences in new ways, the NTCK runs a playwriting competition open to all.
Since its inception in 1957, the NTCK Playwriting Competition has discovered NTCK's repertory plays,

including <Daughters Celebrate Free Love> by Ha Usang , <Manseon: The Yearning of a Fisherman> by Chon Seung Sei, and <A Family> by Lee Yong Chan.

Until recently, through the [Playwriting Postbox] and [Creative Resonance: Playwriting/Playwrights] projects, NTCK has introduced numerous new plays to audiences.

Written Kim Joohee

Juhee received recognition in the Korean theatre scene through Under the Floor, the grand prize-winning play from the 2024 NTCK Playwriting Competition.
She deeply engages with audiences by capturing the subtle cracks in everyday life and portraying the depths of the human psyche through sensuous language

Directed Shin Jaehoon

The representative director of theatre company Theater Box Room, he is an exceptional director who moves fluidly between theatre and musical theatre, closely engaging with the times and translating profound social messages into sensuous and versatile stage language.