Dalhousie acting students see themselves represented on stage

This past week Lisa Corey saw a performance unlike any she’d seen before.

“I’ve never, before this week, seen an Asian lead in Halifax—if anywhere, actually,” says Lisa Corey, a fourth-year acting student at Dalhousie University’s Fountain School of Performing Arts.

She and her acting classmate, Adrian Choong, saw Kim’s Convenience this past week.

Kim’s Convenience is a play about a Korean-Canadian family in Toronto’s Regent Park. When the Soulpepper production first premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2011, it was voted the festival’s best new play. Playwright and actor Ins Choi later adapted the play for a CBC show of the same name, which debuted this past October.

The play is on a national tour and is currently in Halifax at the Neptune theatre.

Signal reporter Allie Graham speaks with Corey and Choong about what the play and show has meant to them. Graham also speaks with Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who plays Appa in the play and CBC adaptation. He reflects on his experience performing as part of Kim’s Convenience and offers advice to young Asian-Canadian actors and actresses.

Listen to the full story here:

You can see Kim’s Convenience at Neptune Theatre until February 5, 2017.