Albert Schultz
Artistic Director
Soulpepper Theatre Company
Toronto, Ontario
February 2012

INTRODUCTION

In the late nineteenth century, Canadian missionaries began working in South Korea. They built churches, hospitals, schools, and universities, while developing close relationships with the people. In 1948, a mission-sponsored medical student named Tae-Yon Whang arrived in Canada to continue his studies. After completing his education, he decided to stay and inadvertently became the first Korean to officially immigrate to Canada.

In 1965, there were seventy Korean immigrants in Canada. In 1967, the first Korean church was established at St. Luke’s United Church on the corner of Sherbourne Street and Carlton Street in downtown Toronto. Originally named the Toronto Korean Church, it was renamed the Toronto Korean United Church after becoming a part of the United Church of Canada. In 1973, the Ontario Korean Businessmen’s Association (OKBA) was established. The organization offered group purchasing to small businesses through its wholesale outlet, and serviced mainly Korean convenience store owners.

With the Korean church and the OKBA established, Koreans could come to Toronto, make friends, gain support, purchase a store, fill the store with products, and make a pretty good living without ever having to learn English. Korean convenience stores spread all over Toronto, as did the Korean churches. In 1980, there were 20,000 Koreans in Canada, and in 2011, that number rose to 200,000. I’ve always considered the church and the store to be the Umma and the Appa of Korean communities in Canada.

When I graduated from the acting program at York University in 1998, there were few Asian actors to look up to. In fact, there was a lack of roles for Asian males in plays, TV shows, and movies. The only roles out there were two-bit parts in three-bit movies-of-the-week, involving silent-on-camera Asian gang members. Was this my career? There were the plays of Rick Shiomi, Jean Yoon, Marty Chan, and M. J. Kang, which inspired me, but that was about it. Something needed to change.

Then, in 2002, fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company was launched under the leadership of Nina Lee Aquino, Richard Lee, David Yee, and Leon Aureus. Through fu-GEN, the Asian theatre community in Toronto was being nurtured, award-winning shows were being produced, and new plays were being written. In 2005, Nina invited me to be part of their third playwriting unit. That was the beginning of Kim’s Convenience. Over the next five years, I received writing grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council, and was given workshop opportunities to finish this play from fu-GEN, Diaspora Dialogues, and Grace Toronto Church. It was a gruelling process. I gave up many times and celebrated the work’s completion on countless occasions. And although I didn’t think the play was finished, in 2010, I submitted it to a few theatre companies in Toronto, just to see what feedback I’d receive. All of them were encouraging, but none of them were interested. It was then that I realized I would have to birth this play myself. In my research of independent theatre festivals in Toronto, I came across the New Play Contest held by the Toronto Fringe Festival. The winner would automatically have his or her show in the festival, the eight-hundred-dollar entrance fee would be waived, and the title “Winner of New Play Contest” would be plastered all over promotional materials. I entered. It won.