EST/LA presents the
World Premiere of
TWO STOP
by David Johann Kim
directed by Tracey A. Leigh
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May 2 – June 9, 2024
Opening Night - May 4th
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Atwater Village Theatre,
On the verge of the ’92 LA Riots.
A Korean market.
A murder scene.
A store owner and
a neighborhood teenaged girl face off.
When her wild card mother arrives,
secrets from the past explode in this tiny store.
History and histories go head to head
as LA starts to burn.
In the tiny Two Stop market on the edge of LA’s Koreatown, this headstrong teen, her fierce mother and this lone Korean émigré reach back decades and even across the globe through war, strife, love and dreams of another time. Will they find connection and even hope? …and will it be enough?
TWO STOP will be presented in conjunction with Chalk Rep’s production of PANG SPA ,
also penned by David Johann Kim.
Daniel Pang returns home to LA’s Koreatown stepping into an unexpected life. Twenty years after the LA Riots, the family business is gone, his brother is gone, and his parents are disappearing with dementia. As Daniel juggles his parents’ care and idiosyncratic neighbors a flinty young army vet arrives on a mission forcing him to confront his past. PANG SPA is a Los Angeles, K-town dramedy celebrating family, memory and identity through a journey of healing.
Both productions are made possible by LANPP and the Venturous Theatre Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation, in addition to support provided by CTG’s LA Artists Residency program, part of CTG:Forward.
About the Playwright
David Johann Kim
Both of David’s plays, PANG SPA and TWO STOP, were awarded the 2022 Los Angeles New Play Project Award and Grant. TWO STOP was recently workshopped at The Inkwell Theater. PANG SPA was a semifinalist for the 2018 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Ashland New Play Festival and Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the final round of Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation Playwrights Program.
David fell hard for dramaturgy when working on new plays as an actor with powerhouse dramaturgs, Mame Hunt (at Berkeley Rep) and Morgan Jenness ( NYSF’s New Works Now Festival and NY Theatre Workshop’s Dartmouth retreat). Mabou Mines' Ruth Malaczech asked David to be part of the writers group when she was devising A Drop In The Ocean in residence at NYTW. Les Waters selected David to be part of the devising team for their Joint Stock-style production, Act 3 Sc 2 of Life at UC San Diego. He holds an MFA from UC San Diego and is a member of The Dramatists Guild,The Playwrights Union, EST/LA’s Playwrights Unit, Chalk Rep’s Writers group, Playwrights ThinkTank and cofounder of EST/LA’s Ignite Project.
David spent the first half of his career in the theatre primarily as an actor. He originated lead roles in new plays including Han Ong’s Reasons To Live…, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Innocent Erendira, Milton Murayama’s All I Asking For Is My Body, Larry Yep’s Dragonwings, Alan Cook’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East Of Eden, Lynn Manning’s Up From The Downs, and Jessica Hagedorn’s Holy Food. He performed at theatres on both coasts including: The Public Theatre, NY Theatre Workshop, The Lark, Mabou Mines, Repertorio Espanol, La Mama ETC in NYC and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Asian American Theatre Co. and El Teatro Campesino in California.