Ashley Park on ‘Emily in Paris’ and a new ‘Thoroughly Modern...

Fresh from the release of Netflix’s’ Emily of Paris’, actor Ashley Park has a hot version of the show’s creator, Darren Star (‘Sex and the City’, ‘Younger’) that theater buffs may appreciate: ‘I’ll call him the Sondheim of television writing, ”she said.

Listen to this week’s Stagecraft podcast:

Park, a Tony (“Mean Girls”) nominee who regularly appears on Star’s “Emily In Paris,” shared her thoughts on the latest installment of Stagecraft, Variety’s theater podcast. “What I find so productive about Sondheim’s work, especially when it comes to writing for women, is just the nuance, complexity, and flaws he gives women in order to be able to shape these amazing characters,” she said. “I think Darren does that for his female characters [too]. … He makes these characters grow by figuring out what kind of woman they want to be or what they could be. ”

In addition to “Emily in Paris”, Park is also tied to another high-profile TV appearance: “Girls5eva”, the new series being developed by the creator of “Mean Girls”, Tina Fey. But theater is still on their dance card, thanks to an expected encore! Production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” in which Park will play the lead role. The show has been postponed because of the pandemic, but Park remains confident that it will hit the stage at some point after the theaters come back online.

Park will play the title role in a revised version of the 2002 Tony award-winning musical that has been called upon in the years since its premiere for story elements that might be viewed as problematic, particularly when portraying characters of Asian origin. For Encores !, the show’s creators, Jeanine Tesori and Dick Scanlan (alongside playwright Lauren Yee), want to rework the show with inclusivity in mind. “My attention was drawn to things I didn’t even know I was drugged or a little complicit in just about the way they dealt with certain racist and sexist things on the show,” Park said the development of the new production. “You are so ready to make this a show that anyone can do it now.”

It will be a big deal to see Park, a Korean, in the lead role – not as an example of color-blind casting but with a focus on color awareness. “As Millie, I’ll be a Korean American in the 1920s trying to move to Manhattan, and we won’t be blind to how that affects Millie’s experience,” she said.

Also in the new episode of Stagecraft, Park revealed why she always thinks she’s punk and nominated herself to play Sandra Bullock in a hypothetical musical version of “Miss Congeniality”.

To hear the full episode, listen to the link above or download and subscribe to Stagecraft on podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are released every two weeks.