So for the series, Appa and Umma are in their mid-to-late fifties. It’s 2016, and they continue to run the store they bought in 1984 at Sherbourne and Queen, sandwiched between the changing downtown neighbourhoods of Moss Park and Regent Park. Janet is twenty and studying photography at OCADU, and Jung is twenty-five and has just started working at Handy Car Rental.

We also meet Janet’s friends at OCADU, Gerald and Semira. We meet Jung’s best friend, co-worker, and roommate, “Kimchee” Han, who, like Jung, was a delinquent teenager. We also meet Shannon, their twenty-six-year-old boss from Cape Breton, who sometimes has trouble hiding the fact that she has eyes for Jung.

We also introduce Umma’s circle of peers at church, including the well-heeled Mrs. Park, as well as Umma’s more relaxed friend, Mrs. Lee. Finally, at the store we find Appa’s friends dropping by, including Mr. Chin and Mr. Mehta, local Chinese and Indian business owners respectively, who together with Appa share a similar path to Canada from their homelands.

As we expanded the world around the store, story ideas started to come from this new mix of characters. What if Appa commissioned Janet’s friend from school to take pictures of him instead of asking Janet? What if Jung was trying for a promotion at work? Would Umma be happy about it? Would his best friend be upset? The Kims’ world expanded further as we brought on more writers, who offered their own ideas on the characters. What if Appa’s widower friend Mr. Chin asked Appa to be his wingman on a date? What if Appa disciplined a kid at the store who happened to be the five-year-old son of Janet’s photography professor?

These are just some of the premises that make up our first season. But they all grew from the beloved characters of the play. We just tried to colour in details of their lives that went beyond the boundaries of the stage.

While this may sound relatively straightforward, it was not. It took two years and tons of discussion, and there were plenty of creative missteps along the way. Early on, for example, Mr. Chin was Appa’s nemesis, but we found it was better (and funnier) to have them as friends. Also, Janet’s friend from school, Gerald, was originally conceived as a heavily pierced Goth. But when we cast the role, Ben Beauchemin brought a completely different vibe to the part and we loved it.

Another big shift was making Umma and Appa more contemporary. In the play the characters are modelled more on the generation of Koreans who came to Canada in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But in the series, they’re more modern. They came to Canada in the ’80s, when they were in their twenties. So Umma and Appa are more youthful in the TV version. They are still actively working, they have friends, they socialize, and Umma in particular is more mischievous and playful than what we saw on stage.

Hopefully these changes will further colour the already rich canvas Ins painted in the play. For me it’s been both extremely fulfilling and daunting. You don’t want to mess with a world that’s so well drawn to begin with. Thankfully, the best part of the process has been Ins’ generosity and friendship. It’s not easy bringing on people to adjust and change your work, let alone a white guy with little exposure to Korean culture. But over the past two years, Ins and I have shared many family stories. We’ve had long chats with friends about their lives growing up in convenience stores, dry cleaners, and donut shops. We’ve shared ssam gyup sal and galbi and have probably laughed more than in any collaboration I can remember. That alone has made this project one of the most rewarding of my career.