Playwright Ins Choi was born in South Korea and emigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. Taking to theater at an early age, he participated in his high school’s plays and later graduated from York University with a degree in theater, then worked with Toronto’s fu-GEN, self-described as an “Asian Canadian Theatre Company.” Turning to writing, he authored Kim’s Convenience, a play about a family of Korean immigrants in Toronto headed by a stubborn patriarch, with an understanding mother (Umma) and two adult children — the artistic, still-single Janet, and estranged son Jung — rounding out the family. The play explores a clash of cultural expectations, as Appa — “Dad” or “Daddy” in Korean, the only name he’s given in the play — attempts to assert his authority not only in the store (where he’s quick to discern which customers are likely to shoplift, his profiling inevitably veering into problematic territory) but also in the lives of his offspring. Stubborn, but ultimately loving, Appa is the pillar around which the family centers, despite the estrangement between himself and Jung.
Read more “Kilian Melloy Interviews Playwright Ins Choi, whose play, ‘Kim’s Convenience,’ opens at The Huntington”
