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: The Situation

Geography: Europe > Western Europe > Germany

Year: 2015

Produced by: Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin

Creative Team: By Yael Ronen and Ensemble; directed by Yael Ronen

Synopsis: The Situation stages a German language class in Berlin where Palestinian, Israeli and Syrian newcomers confront the political histories they have brought with them. Devised by Yael Ronen with performers connected and affected by conflict in the Middle East, the production uses multilingual dialogue, music, humour and political cabaret to explore migration and identity. Language learning cannot be separated from war and discrimination. The production observes how nationalism and political conflict travel are entwined with identities and diasporas. This emphasises how integration into a host nation and tight policing of borders cannot erase inherited histories of dispossession, anger and fear as well as the desire for a peaceful life beyond the conflict in Berlin.

Source: Theater Treffen, Event Listing for The Situation: https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/programm/2016/10-inszenierungen/the-situation Maxim Gorki Theater, Yael Ronen, Profile Page: https://www.gorki.de/en/company/yael-ronen Maxim Gorki Theatre, The Situation, Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVZ3lwcic2U
Title: The Story of Descending the Long Slopes of Valparaíso

Geography: Asia > Eastern Asia > Japan

Year: 2017

Produced by: Kyoto Experiment and Okazaki Art Theatre

Creative Team: Written and directed by Yudai Kamisato; performed by Martín Tchira, Martín Piroyansky, Marina Sarmiento and Eduardo Fukushima

Synopsis: The Story of Descending the Long Slopes of Valparaíso develops from Yudai Kamisato’s 11 month research across Latin America and his own Okinawan-Peruvian family history. Dancers and performers with different relationships to Argentina, Brazil and Japan share a theatrical space where migration is not organised around one national centre. Kamisato is particularly interested in histories that become difficult to classify nationally, including Japanese communities established in Latin America over several generations. The production shifts between travel and remembered family history, questioning whether the idea of homeland survives repeated movement.

Source: Okazaki Art Theatre, official production page: https://okazaki-art-theatre.com/en/work/valparaiso Performing Arts Network Japan, interview and production background: https://performingarts.jpf.go.jp/en/article/7125/
Title: The Suppliants by Aeschylus

Geography: Americas > Northern America > United States of America

Year: 2020

Produced by: Theatre of War Productions

Creative Team: Translated and Directed by Bryan Doerries | Featuring a chorus of Garifuna singers, musicians, and performers from Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala

Synopsis: The theatre group, Theatre of War, grouped a variety of performers from various cultural backgrounds to form together and retell Aeschylus’s 2500-year-old timeless story about fifty female refugees, fleeing their lands to escape forced marriage and domestic violence at the hands of the men in their community. The women are forced to seek asylum in a new land, and the community is grappling with the effects of taking in the women in. The Theatre of War has altered the text to fit within the modern context to help with creating a constructive dialogue and the impacts of war, migration and asylum seeking.

Source: https://theaterofwar.com/projects/the-suppliants-project | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKGw9j0jVL8
Title: The Tao of The World

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2022

Produced by:

Creative Team: Jovanni Sy | Written and Director: Jovanni Sy

Synopsis: Synopsis：Set in a post-pandemic, ultra-wealthy Singapore à la Crazy Rich Asians, The Tao of the World is a sharp, modern adaptation of William Congreve’s The Way of the World. As high society emerges from isolation, the elite scramble to reclaim lost pleasures—seducing partners and scheming for family fortunes. In this decadent world of betrayal and desire, Jovanni Sy’s play satirizes moral decay and questions whether the pandemic taught anyone anything at all.

Source: https://arts.ucalgary.ca/creative-performing-arts/news-and-events/school-events/scpa-2021-22-season/drama-2021-22-season-0
Title: The Trigger

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2005

Produced by:

Creative Team: Carmen Aguirre | Playwright: Carmen Aguirre Director: Katrina Dunn

Synopsis: In The Trigger, Carmen Aguirre explores the trauma of a 13-year-old girl, Carmen, raped at gunpoint in 1981 Vancouver. The fragmented narrative shifts between her youth, marked by a crush on Scott Baio, and her adult confrontation at her rapist’s parole hearing. Directed by Katrina Dunn, the play uses striking visuals, like a trapeze and painted sets, to depict resilience shaped by Carmen’s Chilean heritage, avoiding victimhood and celebrating survival.

Source: https://www.vancouverplays.com/theatre/reviews_theatre/review_trigger_2005.htm
Title: The Trojans

Geography: Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom

Year: 2019

Produced by: The Trojan Women Project

Creative Team: Victoria Beesley
Adapted by Mariem Omari Alaa Saloum Sanaa Al Froukh | Director: Victoria Beesley
Adapted by Mariem Omari Alaa Saloum Sanaa Al Froukh

Synopsis: The Trojans transcends countries and time, with a cast who have known the horror of war bringing their own experiences of exile and loss into Euripides’ shocking 2,500 year old play; they also tell of the bitter-sweetness of building new lives in Scotland. The aim of the project is to build links between Syrians newly arrived in Scotland and local communities; to allow Syrians who have found a haven in Scotland to work through their depression, isolation and trauma.

Source: https://www.trojanwomenproject.org/the-trojans
Title: The Village

Geography: Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > Australia

Year: 2017

Produced by: La Boite Theatre Company and MDA Ltd

Creative Team: Directed by Todd MacDonald; created with refugee and migrant performers living in Brisbaneo

Synopsis: The Village brings refugee and migrant residents of Brisbane onto the stage to recount experiences of leaving home and building new lives in Australia. Direct storytelling and the use of verbatim theatre allows each performer to retain the rhythm and emphasis of their own account. Memories of conflict sit beside descriptions of work or interrupted education. This shifts attention from the dramatic border crossing towards the longer processes of rebuilding social relationships after migration. The title presents belonging as something made through a community rather than granted immediately through obtaining migration status. The production also resists discussing refugees as a single group, preserving differences in age and reason for movement. By appearing themselves, the performers claim authority over their own stories.

Source: La Boite Theatre Company, production archive: https://laboite.com.au/about/history/2010/the-village La Boite Theatre Company, production programme: https://laboite.com.au/uploads/lb2017_village_program-a762b62.pdf
Title: The Walk with Little Amal

Geography: Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom

Year: 2021

Produced by: Produced by David Lan and Tracey Swaward; Good Chance; The Walk Productions Ltd; In association with Handspring Puppet Company and St Ann’s Warehouse (for later New York presentation)

Creative Team: Directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi; Created by Good Chance; Little Amal designed by Handspring Puppet Company

Synopsis: The Walk with Little Amal is a travelling transnational 3.5-metre puppet of a ten-year-old Syrian refugee child. In 2021, Amal travelled from the Syria-Turkey border across more than sixty-five towns in nine countries, meeting communities through public performances and welcomes. Amal uses public procession and community, civic participation centred round site-specific events rather than conventional stage plot. The artwork emphasises child displacement and refugee journeys in a search for safety. Similarly, the project rejects nationalist hostility toward refugees by placing a vulnerable child figure in a public space. This prompts the audience to consider how they will respond, emphasising the responsibility or refusal in spectatorship.

Source: Good Chance, Public Artwork entry for The Walk with Little Amal: https://www.goodchance.org.uk/thewalk The Walk with Little Amal website: https://www.walkwithamal.org/
Title: The Year of the Cello

Geography: Americas > Northern America > Canada

Year: 2022

Produced by: Music Picnic and Theatre Passe Muraille

Creative Team: Marjorie Chan | Co-Creators: Marjorie Chan and Njo Kong Kie
Playwright: Marjorie Chan Director: Marjorie Chan

Synopsis: Synopsis：In The Year of the Cello, Wen recalls her childhood in 1930s Hong Kong and her deep friendship with Li-An. Their lives are forever changed when they encounter a mysterious, silent Cellist whose music awakens buried memories and unspoken emotions. As a wave of bubonic plague strikes the city, Wen watches her world shift—tradition clashes with modernity, love is lost, and grief takes root. Through the Cellist’s haunting melodies, Wen confronts the past and the pain of Li-An’s departure. This lyrical, music-driven play traces a journey of memory, loss, and healing in a city on the cusp of transformation.

Source: https://www.passemuraille.ca/cellomedia/
Title: THEM

Geography: Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > Australia

Year: 2019

Produced by: La Mama Theatre with an independent Palestinian-Australian creative team

Creative Team: Written by Samah Sabawi; directed by Bagryana Popov

Synopsis: THEM is set in a besieged city where five people wait for a smuggler who may provide a route out. The location remains unnamed. This prevents the audience from assigning displacement to one distant conflict. Characters begin to remember their past as the production examines how war reduces movement to dangerous choices between remaining and leaving. Refuge does not mean arriving at a secure destination as escape ultimately depends on money and trust. The prospective travellers know that another border may expose them to further violence. Sabawi gives the characters humour and disagreement, resisting a single image of “the refugee.” THEM focuses on how the home has become unsafe but another place is not yet reachable.

Source: ArtsHub, production review: https://www.artshub.com.au/news/reviews/review-them-la-mama-theatre-vic-258130-2363428/ Australian Cultural Fund, project information: https://artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2E6F000003ZMpwUAG/them-a-new-play-by-sama h-sabawi