Shawn Ku

About

Listed as one of Fade In Magazine’s “Top 100 People in Hollywood to Watch” in 2004, writer-director Shawn Ku wowed Sundance with his award-winning musical short, Pretty Dead Girl, which played at numerous film festivals worldwide. The short is currently being developed into a full-length stage production with Broadway Theatre producers, the Araca Group (Urinetown, Wicked). 

Signed to direct Warner Brothers’ Dramarama while still a student at USC, Ku was hired to write and direct the musical feature film adaptation of the infamous porn Debbie Does Dallas for Universal and producer Marc Platt (Legally Blond, Wicked).  He is currently directing “The American Mall,” an MTV musical film produced by Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush (High School Musical, HSM2, HSM3).

Ku earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Harvard University, but left the sciences to become a Broadway performer in the Tony Award-winning shows Fosse, Miss Saigon, and The King and I, among others.  As an actor, he won a Jury Prize at AFI FEST for his performance in the lead role in the internationally acclaimed feature Samsara, which Miramax acquired at the Toronto Film Festival the day after 9/11.