Performance and Migration website is designed to support any researcher, student or specialist in completing literature reviews, essays, publications or more in the field of Theatre and Migration by providing an easily accessible archive of research which has been compiled and sorted into several comprehensive collections

Archives: Productions

304 entries

Title: Now Is the Time to Say Nothing

Geography: Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom

Year: 2018

Produced by: Young Vic Taking Part; Mayfest; Arnolfini; touring venues

Creative Team: Created by Caroline Mary Williams and Reem Karssli

Synopsis: Now Is the Time to Say Nothing is an interactive video and sound installation made by Caroline Williams with Syrian artist Reem Karssli. Audience members sit in arm chairs and put on headphones to immerse themselves in the video and sound installation of Karssli’s daily experience of the Syrian conflict. Using real on the ground footage and Karssli reports her experience in a remote exchange with teenagers in the UK. Directly challenging armchair passivity, the piece examines the conditions that precede exile and interrogates the ethics of witnessing conflict from a distance. The piece invites the audience to take part in the instillation, emphasising the importance of connection and the stark brutalities of war. It asks how the act of watching can become an act of care, indifference or consumption as the context surrounding displacement is continually changing.

Source: Caroline Mary Williams, Portfolio entry of Now is the Time to Say Nothing: https://www.carolinemarywilliams.com/work/now-is-the-time-to-say-nothing/ Sleepdogs, Review of Now Is the Time to Say Nothing by Tim: https://sleepdogs.org/2018/05/review-now-is-the-time-to-say-nothing/ Meer, Review of Now Is the Time to Say Nothing at the Battersea Arts Centre: https://www.meer.com/en/57897-now-is-time-to-say-nothing
Title: Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2017

Produced by: 2B Theatre Company, development supported in part by The National Arts Centre

Creative Team: Written by Hannah Moscovitch | Directed by Christian Barry | Songs by Ben Kaplan + Christian Barry | Additional Music by Graham Scott | Performed by Ben Kaplan + others

Synopsis: Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a humorously dark folk tale woven together with a high-energy concert. This music/ theatre hybrid starring international Klezmer sensation Ben Caplan is inspired by the true stories of Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908. It’s about how to love after being broken by the horrors of war. It’s about looking into the eyes of God.

Source: https://www.2btheatre.com/shows/old-stock/ | https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/64885/old-stock-a-refugee-love-story
Title: Orestes in Mosul

Geography: Europe > Western Europe > Belgium

Year: 2019

Produced by:

Creative Team: Rau, Milo | Director – Drama adapted from previous source: Greek tragedies

Synopsis: A contemporary reworking of Aeschylus’ Oresteia created with an international ensemble of Iraqi and European actors after research trips to Mosul. The production connects the ancient cycle of revenge to current conflicts and asks how societies can move from violence toward justice and reconciliation.

Source: https://www.ntgentarchief.be/detail/orestes-in-mosul–milo-rau ; https://kaaitheater.be/en/agenda/19-20/orestes-mosul ; https://www.ntgent.be/productions/orestes-in-mosul
Title: Os Filhos do Colonialismo

Geography: Europe > Southern Europe > Portugal

Year: 2020

Produced by: Hotel Europa

Creative Team: Created by André Amálio; co-created and choreographed by Tereza Havlíčková; developed with a Portuguese and African ensemble

Synopsis: Os Filhos do Colonialismo examines how people born after Portugal’s 1974 revolution inherit the country’s colonial history. Testimony from descendants of settlers and African families shows that the end of the formal empire did not remove the racial assumptions that it produced. Participants describe family stories and school education to show the differences between national commemoration and private personal relationships. The production considers migration between former colonies and Portugal as part of a continuing postcolonial relationship. Descendants may inherit emotional attachments to places they never lived, while African Portuguese citizens encounter demands to explain origins repeatedly. The work asks whether a generation without direct experience of the empire can remain politically innocent of its consequences.

Source: Teatro Municipal do Porto, production page: https://www.teatromunicipaldoporto.pt/pt/programa/hotel-europa-os-filhos-do-colonialismo/ Teatro Municipal do Porto, calendar and event information: https://www.teatromunicipaldoporto.pt/pt/calendario/hotel-europa-os-filhos-do-colonialismo/ EASTERN EUROPE – NA WESTERN EUROPE WESTERN EUROPE GERMANY
Title: Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat

Geography: Americas > Northern America > United States of America

Year: 2008

Produced by: Silk Road Theatre Project

Creative Team: Director: Patrizia Acerra | Dramaturgy: None listed

Synopsis: In this Yussef El Gundi play, the text and performance show the struggles of western assimilation for many middle eastern migrants coming to North America (mainly the United States), as well serves as a time capsule from nearly 20 years ago as to the political unrest before the Arab spring and the experiences many Egyptian-American migrants experienced leaving their homelands due to impending unrest.

Source: https://www.newcitystage.com/2008/03/06/review-our-enemies-lively-scenes-of- | https://arabstages.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2020/11/review-of-the-selected-works-of- | https://www.silkroadarchives.org/blog/2017/3/1/our-enemies-lively-scenes-of-love-and-
Title: Ousmane

Geography: Africa > Western Africa > Senegal

Year: 2026

Produced by: Independent Senegalese production with support from KVS, Brussels

Creative Team: Written by Michel Bernard; performed by Yaya Guissé

Synopsis: Ousmane follows a young man from Casamance who attempts to leave Senegal by pirogue. The young man’s journey is interrupted by coastal police before the boat reaches open water. After destroying his identity papers in the hope of beginning again elsewhere, he makes another attempt and is arrested near Saint-Louis. He spends time in prison, yet this does not remove his determination to migrate. Instead, his confinement gives him time to think of other alternatives available to him. The production connects irregular migration to unemployment and the idea that dignity is found through starting a fresh. The production poses the question of how imagined futures might look like when establishing a home requires a person to erase evidence of their former life.

Source: Le Dakarois, production and synopsis: https://ledakarois.sn/theatre-yaya-guisse-porte-sur-scene-ousmane-un-recit-poignant-sur-lexil-et-la-migrat ion-clandestine/
Title: Paradise Red

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2014

Produced by: Alameda Theatre Company

Creative Team: Bruce Gibbons Fell | Playwright: Bruce Gibbons Fell Director: Marilo Nuñez

Synopsis: Set in 1970s post-coup Chile, Paradise Red unfolds during a chaotic weekend at the estate of General Cristóbal Riofrío, recently deceased under suspicious circumstances. His estranged son returns home, only to confront buried secrets: a domineering, alcoholic mother, a devout sister hiding violent truths, and whispers of betrayal, lust, and abuse. As family tensions explode, layers of political corruption and personal trauma unravel in telenovela fashion—culminating in a devastating truth no one is prepared to face.

Home

Source: https://ttdb.ca/shows/paradise-red/
Title: Parifam

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2024

Produced by: Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre

Creative Team: Aki Yaghoubi | Playwright: Aki Yaghoubi Director: Panthea Vatandoost

Synopsis: Detached from family and friends, Parifam Mana draws and paints in her private studio in Montréal—a place where memory and inspiration are in a continuous battle. Parifam‘s world is turned upside down when her childhood friend Ramak re-enters her life. Parifam and Ramak grapple with the hidden truths that linger in their past—soon to be revealed in an exhibition on Persian culture at a museum they built together.

Source: https://vact.ca/shows-and-events/parifam-by-aki-yaghoubi/
Title: Passeport

Geography: Europe > Western Europe > France

Year: 2025

Produced by: ACMÉ

Creative Team: Director/Playwright: Alexis Michalik (France) | Assistant Director: Clotilde Daniault

Synopsis: Passeport tells the story of Issa, a young Eritrean boy who, after being assaulted in the Calais Jungle – a refugee encampment in the North of France – wakes up with amnesia. His passport is the only trace of his past and the sole clue to his identity. Accompanied by his two new friends; Arun, a refugee from Sri Lanka, and Ali, an immigrant from Syria, Issa embarks on a journey to reconstruct his memory. Simultaneously, the play follows Lucas, a young man from the Comoros Islands who was adopted by a white, xenophobic father. Now a police officer, his job is to stop migrants from crossing the Strait of Dover. As the story unfolds, the two protagonists ultimately meet and come to support one another. In a context saturated with miserabilist clichés and reductive media representations of migrants, Michalik’s production offers a nuanced and compassionate perspective of immigration, characterized by agency and hope.

Source: https://www.acme.eu.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Dossier_passeport.pdf | https://www.acme.eu.com/passeport/
Title: Peter El Rojo, The Gorilla

Geography: Americas > Northern America > United States of America

Year: 2016

Produced by: IATI

Creative Team: Carlos Espinal | Playwright: Carlos Espinal

Synopsis: Franz Kafka’s A Report to an Academy recounts the journey of an ape who learns to imitate humans and is honored by the Royal Academy of Sciences. In Carlos Espinal’s stage adaptation, the allegory expands: the ape evolves into a “civilized” man, his voice echoing the struggles of emigrants who, in search of belonging, adopt foreign rules to survive in societies that stigmatize and reject them as outsiders.

Source: Source：https://www.iatitheater.org/shows/detail/the-gorilla