I’m so proud that Ins Choi’s play Son of a Preacherman is coming to TEMC. “Coming” as in we’re producing it, putting it on, in our chancel, as a blessing to Toronto.
And now, you can be part of it.
Ins, as you may know, is a Canadian treasure, having authored the original play Kim’s Convenience on which the smash TV show was based. The play is more explicitly Christian than the show, you won’t be surprised to learn. It’s essentially the Prodigal Son set in a Toronto shop of the sort many Korean immigrants owned and worked for in their first generation in Canada. When Ins was coming up as an actor he found few substantive parts for which he could audition as an Asian-Canadian. So he wrote the sort of play he wanted to act in. As a young actor and writer he was best positioned to play the prodigal son. At its most recent run, Ins finally got to play the father, Appa, the part he always wanted to play since he wrote it. He was finally old enough to be convincing! Ins himself has a seminary degree from Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto and is, as you might have guessed, a son of a preacher . . .
His biography is a major part of this new play. The church is almost a character in Son, hence its ideal setting in our chancel. Unlike Kim’s, this one includes singing, which in Ins’ lively style is a sort of cross between song and slam poetry. Like its forerunner Kim’s, Son is theologically rich, it draws from the rich artistic vein of the immigrant experience in Canada, and is vastly entertaining. TEMC is not going this alone. We are partnering with friends at Pacific Theatre in Vancouver, where Son recently had a sold-out run and was heavily decorated with awards from PT’s peers in the theatre business.
We’re not brand new to putting on theatre at TEMC, with our long history of Spirit Express. That show would run for a weekend after preparation all school year. Son is running for three weeks at first, with a possibility of extension if ticket sales are as brisk as we anticipate. So for those weeks we need ushers. Lots of ushers. Ushers get to see the play free, of course. They also get to welcome guests from Toronto and beyond who will be here for the show. We have experience at this, every Sunday, don’t we church?! And it is a joy to help someone feel comfortable, find the washrooms and water fountains, locate their seats, and generally help strangers feel like guests, then family.
Danny Meyer is the founder of several ground-breaking restaurants in New York City, including one that has gravitated north of the border—The Shake Shack. In his book about leadership, Setting the Table, Meyer notes that most of us think restaurants are about food. Most of us are wrong. Restaurants are about hospitality. People go back not so much because of the food, but because of how a place made them feel. The same is true of us, church. Hard as we preachers and ministers and musicians work up there, folks will come back or not based on how other church attenders welcomed them or not.
We hope to introduce hundreds or even thousands of people to our space for the first time, and we hope some will come back to worship. We are showing that we are a people who love the arts and especially love the intersection between Christian faith and the arts. One of the pillars of our life together is that we Celebrate Beauty. Will you help us do that by volunteering? I know it may seem like a minor role. It simply is not. Scripture insists that hospitality can mean you’re entertain angels unawares, even welcoming God.
And if that’s not big enough stakes . . . you might even meet Ins Choi 😊
Show Times:
Six performances a week, Tuesday to Sunday 7:30pm October 1 to October 18.
Tickets: https://pacifictheatre.org/show/son-of-a-preacherman/#tickets