PL AYBILL subway stations of the cross
SUBWAY STATIONS OF THE CROSS INS CHOI }{
A pproxi m at e ru n ni ng t i m e: 1 hou r T her e w ill be no i n t er m ission
ARTIST NOTE: INS CHOI
When I was in grade 8, I realized that my mom couldn’t tell the difference between me practicing piano and me fooling around on the piano. Each evening as she prepared dinner, I’d make up half an hour worth of new music. Sometimes my new music would spark an emotion or trigger an image or story and I’d write them down. This was the beginning of my writing. I write to figure out my thoughts, feelings. It’s a vehicle. Often I’m critical of my writing too soon. I write and edit right away. Sometimes, I’ve edited back down to a blank page. I do what I call, “Writing exercises in rhythm, reason and rhyme”. (Even that title took a while to land on.) These are nonsensical poems that give me permission – that invite me to play with words and logic regardless of how it sounds. I always begin writing poems with paper and pen. Something about scratching. When there’s something, I enter it into my laptop and edit it. I print out a draft. I memorize it and edit it. I perform it somewhere and
edit it. Written words inform my eyes. Spoken words inform my ears. Performed words inform my body as I breathe between phrases and prepare for enough air to last the thought. In 2002, a deranged homeless man spoke to me for an hour. I began writing and eventually edited it down to this show. Thank you for coming. ins choi Play wright, Creator and Performer of Subway Stations of the Cross
TIDBIT • T he stations of the cross is a series
of 14 pictures or carvings representing successive incidents during Jesus’ progress from his condemnation by Pilate to his crucifixion and burial. In some churches, devotions are performed before these images.
s t u dio s e r i e s s p on sor
CREATIVE TEAM
SUBWAY STATIONS OF THE CROSS
CAST
Ins Choi
Produc t ion
Ins Choi
Ken MacKenzie
Sarah Miller
Playwright & creator
Design Consultant
Stage Manager
SOULPEPPER PRODUCT ION
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull
Stefan Dean
Greg Chambers
Head of Hair & Makeup
Cutter
Props Builder
Erika Connor
Barbara Nowakowski
Lead Wardrobe Coordinator
First Hand
A unique book based on this show, published by House of Anansi Press, is available for purchase at the Box Office. There is also an art exhibit upstairs in the gallery on the second floor featuring the artwork of Guno Park, which is also featured in the book.
The recorded song Wedding Bells is used with the kind permission of Duane Forrest. Developed with the kind support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council. special thanks: Samantha Semczyszyn, Jacob robert Whibley.
p hoto: s a n dy n ic hol son
BACKGROUND NOTES
S
ubway Stations of the Cross is the latest original piece from the delicious mind of Ins Choi, the author of Kim’s Convenience. He takes on the character of a homeless man, performing his own songs and poems in order to “speak forth a message from the divine... or (release) the paranoid schizophrenic voices in (the character’s) head.”
Subway Station’s central vehicle is spoken word. The term may be new but the form is a direct descendant of the oral tradition. Its mission is to express identity, speak the truth of lived experience, and resist authority. This passionate modern genre of poetry burst on to the scene (some say) in 1968 when creator Gil Scott-Heron used music to underscore an insurgent spoken poem called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It was original then, and it’s still subversive today nearly 50 years later. If Scott-Heron (re)introduced it, poet Miguel Algarin gave it a home. In 1973 he began a poetry salon in his apartment in the East Village. By 1975 his gatherings had given birth to the Nuyorican Poets Café, and a diverse group of nonmainstream artists and poets electrified an ever-expanding community of audiences, that continues to this day. Poet Josh Healey says “In terms of social change, storytelling can get us beyond the talking points... to connect with people’s deeper feelings and emotions.” Spoken word is inherently theatrical: it exists to be performed live, to be poured into the soul and mainlined to the heart. Rhythm, improvisation, free association, and powerful ideas converge in the musical power of the words. Like a call, it asks everything in us to respond.
Background Note by 2015 Resident Artist Paula Wing
The stations of the cross ask Christians to meditate on the most difficult period of Jesus’ life. Ins Choi says that in this piece he’s “aiming for what a Biblical prophet like Isaiah or Ezekiel might do today.” The character he has created dares to ask us to meditate, to slow down long enough to breathe a little deeper, be less productive and more attentive so we can hear what is calling to us.
poe t Biogr aph y
Ins Choi was born in South Korea and grew up in Scarborough. He has performed at Stratford, Fu-Gen, and Canadian Stage, among others, but for the past six years he’s been a treasured company member at Soulpepper, in shows from Alligator Pie to Accidental Death of an Anarchist. His first full-length play, Kim’s Convenience (begun in the Fu-Gen playwriting unit) won the Toronto Fringe’s New Play Contest and premiered there in 2011. It’s had multiple runs at Soulpepper, a national tour, and was published by House of Anansi Press, who also published Subway Stations of the Cross. In partnership with Soulpepper, Thunderbird Films and CBC, Kim’s Convenience is currently being developed into a television series that will be broadcast on the CBC in 2016. Ins lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.
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