‘Koreaboo’ finds unlikely kinship in K-pop fan culture

Michelle Lim Davidson’s debut play, Koreaboo, places a Korean-born Australian adoptee in a Seoul convenience store with the birth mother she has only recently reconnected with. Hannah, raised in regional New South Wales after being adopted as a baby, arrives hoping to spend the summer with Umma. Instead, she encounters a guarded stranger and a series of cultural and emotional misunderstandings.

The title refers to someone, usually non-Korean, who is obsessed with Korean pop culture. In the play, that fixation becomes a point of connection between two women separated by geography, language and expectation. Hannah feels too Korean to be properly Australian and too Australian to be properly Korean, while Umma responds to her search for identity with discomfort and rejection.

K-pop eventually offers them a shared vocabulary. As members of the BTS Army, Hannah and Umma find the first signs of solidarity, even as each woman performs versions of identity, intimacy and culture. The production also turns its attention to Umma’s attachment to Sex and the City, suggesting that fan culture can create imaginative lives as well as unexpected forms of kinship.

Directed by Jessica Arthur and designed by Mel Page, the play unfolds largely within an intimate convenience-store set. Heather Jeong makes her acting debut as Umma, alongside Lim Davidson as Hannah. Koreaboo is inspired by Lim Davidson’s experiences, though the available source does not establish how closely the story reflects her life.

The Guardian described the production as a tender, emotionally complex tribute to fan culture. Following a sellout premiere season at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre in 2025, Koreaboo is showing at Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre until 19 September, before moving to Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre from 24 September to 10 October.