Originally published 2012 | ||
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Similar Subway Stations of the Cross, Alligator Pie, A Brimful of Asha, Cowboy Versus Samurai, Of Human Bondage | ||
Kim's Convenience is a 2011 play by Ins Choi, about a Korean-owned convenience store in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood. It debuted at the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival, where Choi both directed and acted one of the parts; it won the Best New Play award. The play and was remounted in 2012 by Soulpepper Theatre. That production won two Toronto Theatre Critics awards in 2012, for Best Actor in a Play for Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Best Canadian Play. It was a nominee for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2012.
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The script was published by House of Anansi Press in 2012, and the play toured Canada from 2013 to 2016. Korean American actor Daniel Dae Kim also expressed interest in staging it in the United States.
In March 2015, CBC Television announced that a television series based on the play, also titled Kim's Convenience, was in development. The first season of the series was filmed from June to August 2016, and produced by Thunderbird Films and Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company and was broadcast in 11 half-hour episodes on CBC Television in the fall of 2016. The series premiered on October 11, 2016.
Kim s convenience coming this fall cbc
Synopsis
Mr. Kim (Appa) owns and runs his own business, Kim’s Convenience, in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood, with his wife Mrs. Kim (Umma). Mr. Kim hopes the store will provide a future for his daughter, Janet, whom he hopes will take over the store from him when he retires; however, Janet has no interest in running the store and wishes to have a career as a photographer. Regent Park is being gentrified with new condos and developments and the potential of a Wal-Mart opening up and destroying Mr. Kim's business. Realtor Mr. Lee offers to purchase the store and property. The Kims' son, Jung, was kicked out of the house 15 years ago after he stole money from the store's safe and hasn't spoken to Appa since, though Umma maintains surreptitious contact with him by meeting him at her church and he and Janet also remain in touch. It is not until the prodigal son returns and reconciles with his father that the future of Kim's Convenience is assured.
Original cast
Soulpepper production directed by Weyni Mengesha; Fringe production directed by Ins Choi.