Chang You Jeong

Biography

Born in 1976, Chang Youjeong graduated from the School of Drama of the Korea National University of Arts in theatre directing before starting a career as a playwright of musicals in the early 2000s. Mostly known for having directed nationwide hit musical productions such as Finding Mr. Destiny (2006) and Legally Blonde (2009), she is highly regarded among musical actors who named her best playwright in a survey conducted in 2011. 

Her most notable works also include Oh! While You Were Sleeping (2005), for which she won Best Musical and Best Play at the Korea Musical Awards, and All The Brothers Were Valiant (2008), which earned her Best Small Stage Musical at The Musical Awards. Chang made her first foray into film directing in 2010 by adapting her hit musical Finding Mr. Destiny, which had been performed more than 1,600 times by then. 

Starring Lim Soojung and Gong Yoo, the film did away with the musical numbers and was a moderate success at the local box office. Although she has remained mainly dedicated to her theatre career, Chang turned into a film another of her most popular musicals in 2017 in the form of The Bros, based on All The Brothers Were Valiant. 

Her impressive credentials led her to be named executive producer for the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. In early February, she released Honest Comedy, her first film based on an original script. Although the film opened just as Covid-19 hit Korea, it still managed to break even with more than 1.5 million spectators, allowing Chang to quickly work on a sequel that was released just two years later.