Jenny S. Lee and Tony K. Nam star as a Korean-American daughter and her Korean-born father in 'Kim’s Convenience,' the award-winning play now at Everyman Theatre. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography

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If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you may have watched “Kim’s Convenience,” a comedy that ran on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for five seasons, from 2016 to 2021. As Netflix describes it, the show’s premise is simple: “While running a convenience store in Toronto, members of a Korean Canadian family deal with customers, each other and the evolving world around them.”

The series won numerous accolades — not surprising, since it was based on writer Ins Choi’s play of the same name, which was recognized in 2012 with two Toronto Theatre Critics Awards and named Best Canadian Play.

The comedy now comes to Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre, where it runs through Sept. 27. Kudos to this tremendous cast, which pulls the audience through a full range of emotions, from raucous laughter to serious pin-drop silence.

Director Cara Hinh’s production of Choi’s work lends itself to the immigrant-sitcom formula, complete with five elements for success.

1. Specific immigrant family circumstance. Like Choi, whose family emigrated from Korea to Toronto — where his father worked at his uncle’s store, called Kim’s Grocer — the fictional Kim family has moved to Canada for greater economic opportunities.

2. Strong character contradiction. Tony K. Nam plays Appa (Korean for Dad) Kim, the patriarch and owner of a convenience store in Toronto’s Regent Park neighborhood. He’s old-school but cool, street-smart but trendy. Appa has a particular quirk: a love of history, especially about his new home of Canada, soccer and any time the Koreans “pimped” (as in defeated) the Japanese.

Appa is contradicted by his daughter, Janet (Jenny S. Lee), who has no interest in running the store because she’s pursuing photography as a career. The divide between parent and child is even greater in the case of son, Jung (Jae Woo), who left home as a teenager and has been estranged ever since.

3. Cultural and generational tension. Many first-generation Americans clash with their immigrant parents. In the first act, Appa insists that his daughter “call police” when he spots a dreaded Honda (Japanese!) parked in a no-parking zone. Janet playfully mocks her father’s stilted English, while Appa urges Janet to call 911 because “my accent, police don’t take seriously.”

We witness enormous generational tension between Jung and Umma (Mother) Kim, played by Tuyet Thi Pham, as the church- and family-loving Umma confronts Jung’s confessed desire to leave his wife and child for a new life.

4. Comic escalation. The audience will appreciate the number of running jokes, one involving ginseng energy drinks. We watch a latent crush between Janet and a childhood friend, now a police officer, Alex (Austin Michael Young), develop into something more — though not fast enough for Appa, who expects a marriage proposal after one date.

5. Emotional payoff. In a play Choi himself describes as “a love letter to [his] parents and to all first-generation immigrants,” you can expect pathos. After all, a little sorrow gives comedy some much-needed depth.

Will Jung, like the prodigal son, reconcile with his family? Will Appa come to appreciate his daughter’s desire to forge her own path in life, one of photography versus stocking Gatorade? You can probably guess whether all’s well that ends well.

Like a typical sitcom, which runs less than half an hour with commercials, Kim’s Convenience is a taut, turbo-paced, intermission-less 80 minutes.

Special props to Austin Michael Young, who brings four distinct characters to life — Alex; Mike, the Jamaican immigrant who is caught stealing; customer Rich; and Mr. Lee, whose offer to purchase the store at the start of the play is the spark that drives all the action that follows.

\Yoon Bae (set design) and Kat C. Zhou (lighting design) deserve recognition for turning the Everyman stage into a believable 7-Eleven-esque store and even a church.

The show runs through Sept. 27 at Everyman’s home at 315 West Fayette Street in Baltimore. For tickets, see EverymanTheatre.org/Kims-Convenience, call (410) 752-2208 or email boxoffice@everymantheatre.org.