Korean puppet company. In 1980, Ahn Jeong-ui (Ahn Jung-ui, An Jeong-ui) took over Seoul Puppet Theatre, and its name, a company initially founded by Kim Hae-kyung (Kim Hae-gyeong). The group has been active in performances that create appreciation of puppetry in children and young audiences. Ahn Jeong-ui had had considerable experience in puppetry and set design when he took over the company. In 1987, he also opened his own theatre, Ggum-namu Theatre.

Since the company’s first performance, Heungbu Nolbu jeon (The Story of Hungbu and Nolbu, 1981), Seoul Puppet Theatre has adapted traditional Korean folktales. Other productions based on folktales include The Sun and the Moon, The Fairy and the Woodcutter, among others, as well as foreign stories such as Pinocchio, The Ugly Duckling, Aesop’s Fables, Snow White, and new works, for example, Dreams of a Larva.

The company has also performed in Korea at the Chuncheon Puppet Festival (beginning in 1987). Touring principally to Japan, it has presented Shim-cheong Jeon (Story of Shim Cheong, after the pansori epic about a girl willing to sacrifice her life for her father). The company has performed at many festivals, including international festivals organized by UNIMA-Korea in Seoul (1988 and 1991), the Puppeteers of America Festival in San Francisco (1995), the Asia-Pacific Puppet Festivals in Japan (1995) and Russia (1996), and the UNIMA World Puppetry Festival in Budapest with Shim-cheong Jeon.

The Seoul Puppet Theatre organized an exchange programme with the studio of the House of Puppets in Jeongseon-gun County (Gangwon-do Province) founded by Ahn Jeong-ui in 1997.

(See Korea.)