Ins Choi is an actor and a playwright who was born in South Korea but grew up and currently lives in Toronto with his wife and two children. He has performed with theatre companies such as Stratford, Soulpepper, fu-GEN, vAct, PTE, and Pacific Theatre. His award-winning play, Kim’s Convenience, was adapted into a TV series with Thunderbird Films available on CBC and Netflix. He’s retooling his solo show Subway Stations of the Cross and working on his next play, Bad Parent.

Jonah runs away from God. I often do the same. And often it’s only until I’m inside “the belly of a whale” unable to do anything, when I realize God is in love with me and he’s pursuing me for my wholeness, for my health, to re-good me. (My son sang the ‘ooo’s and my daughter sang the harmony in the chorus. I’m grateful to have been able to include them on this.)

Some of the research I did and Youtube sermons I listened to revealed the ancient Assyrians (the people to whom God sends Jonah) to be an extremely violent people. I made a list of the atrocities they were famous for and turned it into a song. I also kept seeing Sunday school Veggie Tale images online when I googled ‘Jonah’ and so, the song was influenced by that style. I’m not treating torture or human suffering lightly. In fact, by sending it up in this satirical, Monty Python kinda way, I think it bites harder cuz it sounds fun.

My wife jokes that I started this thing so I could force people to be my friends. That’s not true. Well, that’s not entirely true. In our second gathering, Maki said something about Jonah being lonely and it stuck with me. And Kaitlin’s monologue from Jonah’s wife’s pov had a real lonesome quality to it. I started writing and this came out. I write to discover, to process, to find the words that align with something that’s in me. And when it reads true, I feel excavated, found and healed.