Mia Park is an American TV show host, actress, drummer, and yoga instructor based in Chicago. She is the long-time host of the children's dance show Chic-a-Go-Go, and co-founder[1] of Chicago's A-Squared Theatre Workshop.
Mia Chan Mi Park was born in Philadelphia.[2] She attended Shimer College, graduating with distinction in 1995.[3] [4] Then located in Waukegan, Illinois and currently located in Chicago, Shimer is a Great Books college with a four-year core curriculum.[5]
Park is the host of the Chicago underground children's show Chic-a-Go-Go, "a dance show for kids of all ages".[6] Lonely Planet described the show as "a kiddie version of Soul Train."[7] Reviews of the show frequently focus on Park's "deliriously chipper"[8] style or "always-up rock-n-roll demeanor". She has hosted Chic-A-Go-Go since 1998.[9] Her connection to Chic-a-Go-Go actually goes back to the very first show in 1996, when her then-boyfriend's band performed as the show's first musical guest, and she appeared as a dancer.[9] Park, who typically moves rapidly from one project to another, has described the show as "the longest thing I've ever done in my life."[10]
As the host (or co-host, as the host is nominally hosted by the rat puppet Ratso), Park interviews the guest musical groups after their performances. In a 2012 Chicago Reader feature, she complained about having missed the opportunity to interview Duran Duran due to a scheduling mixup;[11] In August of the same year, however, Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran made good on their original promise.[12]
A drummer and percussionist, Park began performing in bands in 1995. Many of the bands in which she performs are all-female and/or all-Asian, including Kim (which she described as a "pop-rock, punk-out, all-female Asian band") and Pook Nury (a Korean female drum group). As of 2012, she was a percussionist for the all-female pop orchestra Girl Group Chicago.[12]
In 2001, she wrote of the challenges facing rock groups of this kind:
When I tell people that I am the drummer for an all-Asian American female rock band, I don't expect to be taken seriously. There aren't any other bands like Kim in Chicago, let along in america, so I don't expect the masses to comprehend that, YES, women rock, and that, YES, Asian American women also rock ... and we rock hard, dammit!
Park organizes an annual event of one-night-only female cover bands performing to benefit the homeless, called "Covers for Cover."[13]
Park is a co-founder of Chicago's A-Squared Theatre Workshop, the city's only pan-Asian theater troupe.[4] She conceived of and appeared in the company's highly successful 2012 production My Asian Mom, a series of eight short one-person plays by Asian performers about their mothers.[14] Park's contribution, which dealt with her grandmother's escape from North Korea and also involved a lengthy handstand, attracted particular attention.[15]
Park is an advocate for Asian American representation in theatre. From the Chicago Sun-Times: "For decades, “Chicago Med” regular Mia Park has seen race used as an excuse for lazy or uninformed casting. On the one side, she constantly hears the refrain that Asian-American actors — whether their roots are in Hawaii or India or China or Pakistan — are hard to find. On the other edge, there’s the belief that they simply aren’t right for shows that don’t deal specifically with Asian storylines or characters. Park has a succinct response: “It’s all bulls—,” she said. “The talent base in Chicago alone is huge. And unless ethnicity or culture is specifically written into a character to help drive a story? There’s no reason you can’t cast someone who looks like me.” [16]
In 2006, Mia co-founded the Asian American theater company, A-Squared Theatre Workshop and ran the Chicago Asian American Acting Industry Group which hosted educational acting workshops and supported local Asian American talent. She currently runs the Our Perspective: Asian American Plays program.[17]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | The Lake House | Receptionist | |||
| 2007 | The Minx | Linnea Chiang | [18] | ||
| 2017 | Signature Move | Bookstore Customer |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Pancake Mountain | Miss Mia | 2 episodes | |
| 2011 | Boss | Clinic Volunteer | 4 episodes | |
| 2012 | Shameless | Korean Liquor Store Wife | Episode: Just Like the Pilgrims Intended | |
| 2013–16 | Chicago Fire | Nurse | 4 episodes | |
| 2016 | Chicago P.D. | Nurse Beth | Episode: She's Got Us | |
| 2016–19 | Chicago Med | 28 episodes | ||
| 2017 | APB | Korean Woman | Episode: Fueling Fires | |
| 2018 | Empire | Nurse | Episode: Sweet Sorrow | |
| 2019 | Code-Switched | Kevin's Mom |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | At Last, Okemah! | Record Store Owner | ||
| 2011 | Instant Slapping | |||
| The Catastrophe | Mrs. Kimballton | |||
| 2013 | 4 Seconds: Ricky Hustile's Last Shot at the NBA | Yoga Instructor |
Park has worked as a yoga instructor since 2006.[19]