• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.45-54
• /
• 2021

Jeong Sun-Ah built up her performance career for twenty years with bold and energetic acting and solidified her status as a leading actress of Korean musical since her debut. To benefit from the value of her experience this study performed an in-depth interview with her, applying the Theory of "Projection" and "Back-projection", which are the psychological principles of acting, and derived "acting(entering the roles)" and "de-acting(leaving the roles)" techniques. As result, Her acting mechanism involved emptying her ego, embodying a persona by projecting the role created by intensive exploration of materials like previous performance, film of the same title, original novel, and script, and then getting the ego back by back-projecting through dynamic activities such as overseas travel and dance. She pre-studied the roles by physically visiting sites that are important to the characters. She was unique in that she pursued a difference by changing vocal trainers for each musical production and undertook more intense physical training than vocal practice to achieve powerful singing performance. In most of her works (75%), she suffered from aftereffects such as depression, narcissism, hysteria, and insomnia due to disorder caused by breaking away from the roles. However, she relied on self-help and alternatives are needed in the future such as reinforcement of expert counselling. Jeong Sun-Ah appeared on an average of 1.6 productions per year, practiced for an average of 1.7 months, and performed for an average of 3.9 months with an average of 100 days of break between productions. Her performance record from this research demonstrates her constant preparation and passion, as well as the know-how of reserving and distributing energy. So, it has a valuable implications for acting education and self-management of actors and actress.