Students from Daejin University’s Department of Acting Arts won the Grand Prize and Best Director Award at the 5th Cheonan National Youth Theater Festival for their production of Nine Girls. The play, featuring students Lee Ji-min, Yeo Chae-won, and Shin Hae-eun from the class of 2023, was based on a work by French playwright Sandrine Roche. Originally developed as an on-campus workshop performance during the school break, the production underwent continuous revisions and refinements before reaching the festival’s final stage.

Lee Min-ju, a student from the class of 2023 who directed the production, received the Best Director Award for bringing the play’s central themes and tensions between characters to life through the actors’ physical movements, spatial arrangements, and ensemble performance.

The students explored the original work’s themes of violence, human relationships, play, and conflict through distinctive theatrical expression and innovative use of space. Lee Ji-min, Yeo Chae-won, and Shin Hae-eun participated in every stage of the production, serving as both performers and crew members. Professor Hwang Yeon-hee remarked, “It is particularly meaningful that the students independently developed a production that began as an on-campus workshop performance and went on to achieve such significant recognition at an external theater festival.”