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: Pinda

Geography: Africa > Eastern Africa > Kenya

Year: 2000

Produced by: Amani Peoples Theatre with UNHCR and Caritas Italiana

Creative Team: Developed by Dinka refugee and Turkana youth with Amani Peoples Theatre facilitators

Synopsis: Pinda used a Dinka initiation tradition as the basis for a performance created jointly by refugees and members of the Turkana host community. The work relied on physical action and ritual song more than spoken dialogue. Practices normally restricted to one community were performed collaboratively. This allowed cultural knowledge to become a method of encounter. Audience members joined the performance despite differences in language or national background. This temporary participation did not erase the material tensions surrounding Kakuma, where competition over resources had contributed to violence. Instead, the production created a setting in which participants could test another relationship to one another. Pinda is significant because it presents refugee theatre as cultural authorship rather than testimony produced primarily for international observers.

Source: Beyond Intractability, production analysis and project history: https://www.beyondintractability.org/casestudy/amollo-power
Title: Pizza Shop Heroes

Geography: Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom

Year: 2019

Produced by: Phosphoros Theatre; Edinburgh Festival Fringe and UK tour

Creative Team: Created by Phosphoros Theatre; Written by Dawn Harrison with performers Tewodros Aregawe, Goitom Fesshaye, Emirjon Hoxhaj and Syed Haleem Najibi

Synopsis: Pizza Shop Heroes is an autobiographical performance by Phosphoros Theatre, a company that places refugee and asylum-seeking performers at the centre of its work. Set in a pizza shop, the production follows four young men who came to the UK from Eritrea, Albania and Afghanistan. Through direct address, group performance and humour, the production confronts and questions the impact of arrival, family separation and asylum on the making of male cultural identity. As a collective and lyrical collage of friendship and belonging, Pizza Shop Heroes resists the victim narrative. The work challenges common representations of refugees as helpless or threatening and empowers performers to claim narrative control over their own histories.

Source: Phosphoros Theatre, Production Listing for Pizza Shop Heroes: https://www.phosphorostheatre.com/productions-2 Media Diversified, Article on Pizza Shop Heroes, by Sabo Kpade: https://mediadiversified.org/2019/04/18/pizza-shop-heroes-sees-asylum-seekers-and-refugees-tell-their-o wn-stories/ Broadway Baby, Review for Pizza Shop Heroes, by Freddie Green: https://broadwaybaby.com/shows/pizza-shop-heroes/745464
Title: Poker Face by Petr Kolečko

Geography: Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom

Year: 2016

Produced by: LegalAliens

Creative Team: Petr Kolekčo | Playwright :Petr Kolekčo Director: Becka McFadden

Synopsis: Set in Prague in 2011, this darkly comic play follows poker champion Jana, whose glamorous life hides secrets about Václav Havel, her father’s past in Africa, and her strained bond with daughter Pavlína. As a family dinner spirals into a dangerous game of sex, violence and power, Kolečko’s absurdist world blurs truth, identity and political ambition.

Source: https://legalalienstheatre.com/poker-face/
Title: Portugal Não É Um País Pequeno

Geography: Europe > Southern Europe > Portugal

Year: 2015

Produced by: Hotel Europa

Creative Team: Created and performed by André Amálio; co-directed and choreographed by Tereza Havlíčková; music by Pedro Salvador

Synopsis: Portugal Não É Um País Pequeno draws on interviews with Portuguese people who lived in Angola and Mozambique before decolonisation. Many returned to Portugal during 1974 and 1975, with memories and experiences shaped by colonial privilege and sudden departure. The production places affectionate recollections and testimonies from these individuals alongside historical research which draws to light the complexities of Portugal’s history. The title comes from Estado Novo propaganda presenting Portugal’s colonies as extensions of the nation. By repeating the phrase after the empire’s collapse, the production exposes how colonial ideas continue within family narratives. Return migration is examined alongside the unequal system which complicates settlement. The process of testimony allows nostalgia to be interrogated and questioned.

Source: Hotel Europa, official Portuguese production page: https://hoteleuropateatro.com/portugal-nao-e-um-pais-pequeno/ Hotel Europa, English production page and background: https://hoteleuropateatro.com/en/portugal-is-not-a-small-country/
Title: PROGRESS

Geography: Americas > Northern America > United States of America

Year: 2006

Produced by:

Creative Team: Matei Visniec | Playwright:Matei Visniec Director: Marcy Arlin

Synopsis: Matei Visniec’s PROGRESS explores the aftermath of the 1990s civil war in Balkans, as seen through the return of one refugee family to their ruined home, and their struggle to recover their lives. As in Berman’s play, a society where no old laws seem to apply becomes the crucible for attempts to reclaim or create a new identity and sense of belonging. A repertory cast performs these “bare-bones” productions, with original music.

Source: https://www.immigrantstheat.org/productions/
Title: Qibla (吉卜拉)

Geography: Asia > Eastern Asia > Taiwan

Year: 2017

Produced by: Theatre Fire Thieves, with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature

Creative Team: Written by Shen Wan-ting; directed by Hsieh Tung-ning; performed by an ensemble including Vietnamese new-resident performer Chen Qiu-li

Synopsis: Qibla centres a migrant caregiver, Nadi, who cares for an elderly, disabled grandmother who is affected by dementia. Complicating the distinction between paid care and family relationships, she is the only one who can communicate with the grandmother. Nadi’s desire to return home complicates the dependency that has developed within Taiwanese expectations of the household relations. Migrant workers are expected to create intimate relationships while remaining legally temporary. The production examines care work as a form of transnational emotional labour.

Source: National Culture and Arts Foundation, production archive: https://archive.ncafroc.org.tw/result?id=ab0ba9e8ec734a3eb5056470feb1d59d Taiwan Ministry of Culture, premiere and production information: https://www.moc.gov.tw/News_Content.aspx?n=105&s=53905
Title: Queens of Syria

Geography: Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom

Year: 2016

Produced by: A Developing Artists, Refuge Productions and Young Vic co-production

Creative Team: Directed by Zoe Lafferty; Associate Director Shereen Zoumot

Synopsis: Queens of Syria is a contemporary adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women, performed by an all-female cast of Syrian refugees exiled in Jordan. The production connects the ancient aftermath of war, captivity and exile with the women’s own experiences of Syrian displacement. Featuring a chorus, it combines classical tragedy with the lived experiences of non-professional performers, allowing the women to speak through and alongside Euripides’ text. The work focuses on forced exile from Syria and the gendered experience of war, loss and survival. The production allows women to connect their own contemporary experiences of war and exile with Euripides’ ancient tragedy.

Source: Young Vic, Event listing for Queens of Syria: https://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/queens-of-syria Wild Yak, Queens of Syria Production description: https://www.wildyak.co.uk/queens-of-syria
Title: Rêve

Geography: Africa > Northern Africa > Morocco

Year: 2024

Produced by: Progettomondo Maroc with project partners

Creative Team: Directed by Zakaria Kassi Lahlou; performed by an ensemble of young actors from seven African nationalities.

Synopsis: Rêve follows young African migrants confronting the dangers of irregular migration. The immersive staging places the audience close to the performers, reducing the distance through which migration is often discussed in an abstract, creative or political sense. All performers come directly from African countries, bringing distinct relationships to migration throughout the project. Rêve explores safe alternatives that exist to offer young people opportunities for the future without the need to resort to unsafe routes. The production focuses on the uncertainty and anxiety preceding departure and the risks of migration, focussing on the pressures that make dangerous movement appear necessary. Its community-based approach uses theatre as a form of public discussion about restricted mobility and the unequal opportunities available to African youth.

Source: CCME, production information: https://www.ccme.org.ma/reve-une-piece-de-theatre-immersive-sur-les-drames-de-limmigration/
Title: Reckoning

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2016

Produced by: Article 11

Creative Team: Tara Beagan Directors: Andy Moro and Tara Beagan | Playwright: Tara Beagan Directors: Andy Moro and Tara Beagan

Synopsis: Synopsis：A triptych in movement, video and text, Reckoning is an incendiary theatrical presentation of three separate experiences with Indian Residential Schools, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the fallout that has already reverberated across the country. (article11.ca)

Source: https://article11.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/RECKONING-fbcover_fbcover-JOHN.jpg
Title: References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot

Geography: Americas > Northern America > United States of America

Year: 2025

Produced by:

Creative Team: Jose Rivera | Playwright:Jose Rivera Director: Carmen Aguirre

Synopsis: References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot is a surreal, poetic meditation on love, war, and longing set in the Mojave Desert. Gabriela, the lonely wife of a soldier, escapes into magical fantasies involving a seductive Moon, a flirtatious Cat and Coyote, and a teenage neighbor’s yearning, as she awaits her husband Benito’s return from war. Blending magical realism with raw emotional tension, the play explores fractured intimacy, the scars of conflict, and the aching distance between bodies and dreams.

Source: https://www.eatmoreartvegas.com/post/ema-review-references-to-salvador-dali-make-me-hot-scrumptious