Kim's Convenience creator's new play examines his childhood as son of head pastor in a Korean church

CBC

02-04-2025

Ins Choi grew up attending a Korean church in Toronto, where his dad was the preacher and his grandfather before him.
Although he earned a master's degree in theology and expected to become a pastor himself, Choi went on to become a playwright and author. His name might be familiar to fans of the CBC hit sitcom Kim's Convenience, which was actually a play before it was on television. The show, created by Choi, was inspired by his time working in a convenience store in Toronto.
But now, he's written a new play that looks at growing up in a Korean church as the son of the preacher.
Son of a Preacherman runs April 2 to 13 at the Pacific Theatre in Vancouver.
Choi spoke with CBC's The Early Edition ahead of the premiere.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I understand the play is semi-autobiographical?
Yeah, it's pretty much completely autobiographical. It tells kind of my origin story, if you will. My father is a preacher. I grew up in the church. My grandfather is a preacher. There's a lot of preachers in my family. And so there, I guess it tells, in short, it tells the story of me being pressured to be a preacher and choosing to be an artist.
And what denomination was your family part of?
It was non-denominational at first. My dad moved to Toronto in 1975 with us. I was one year old, and I think technically it was non-denominational, but then after a while it became technically evangelical free. I feel like all Korean churches kind of feel the same.
What was it like growing up in that space?
Pretty great. The church I went to is called Toronto Korean Bethel Church, an immigrant church. Many immigrant churches are usually a hub for the community. Now, it's maybe a little different, but back in the 70s, the Korean churches in Korean communities were the community centre, the language school, Taekwondo classes, history, Korean history classes — all of that would happen. Plus, they had the best food in the city; the best Korean food in the city would be at the Korean church. All these grandmothers, you know. It'd be so warm, like one big huge family gathering every Sunday. I have a lot of great memories of sports activities and clubs and camps.
You come from a long line of preachers. You became a playwright and author — you're a storyteller. Do you see telling stories as a way of sharing your own ideas and experiences with people much in the same way that a preacher might?
It's funny. It didn't occur to me until a few years ago. I watched my dad in his tiny little storage locker office in our apartment, which he turned into an office with, like, milk crates, planks of wood and mounds of duct tape, and he would read. It would just be filled with books. It was like the backyard shed from the movie A Beautiful Mind. It was, like, just pictures on the walls and books. I'd watch him read a bunch of things, a bunch of books, and then start writing what he's going to say in his sermon, and then he would rehearse how he would say his sermon.
That's kind of what I do.
I read a lot of things. Then I write. And then I get up on some kind of stage and speak to an audience with the intention of making them laugh. Definitely, there's an entertainment value, but also to kind of connect with them, to give the audience a sense of community connection, even if it's for, like, an hour or two that one evening.
Kim's Convenience, the play, of course, which preceded the television program, took on a fairly traditional format with characters and a story arc. What can the audience expect with Son of a Preacherman?
This is a very different play. I don't know. It's a bunch of stories and songs that I wrote and one poem. It lasts 75 minutes. Me and Kaitlin Williams, the artistic director of Pacific Theatre and the director of Son of a Preacherman, she and I became friends, and we started working on this about a year ago. I had written a bunch of things, and she helped me sift through it and collect it and kind of put it together. We didn't really quite know what it was. And then she came to Toronto about a month or two ago, and we did a bit of a public reading, a first reading of the play to an audience, and it went over super well. It's part stand-up, part origin story, part just storytelling, part concert.