ARE WE
THERE YET?
Teesri Duniya Theatre SEASON 2019-20 celebrates 38 years
Proud winner of the Montreal English Theatre Award (META) for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
Building on last year’s both critical and popular
success with Birthmark, combined with this season’s opener, the
triumphant HONOUR: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan, Teesri Duniya
Theatre’s (TDT) Artistic Director Rahul Varma is honoured to
announce the company’s 38th season, their biggest one ever—Are We
There Yet? TDT’s high quality theatre season is described as ‘four links,
one chain’; multiple events divided into four interconnected areas related to
the company’s mission—to produce bold, ground-breaking and culturally diverse
plays that provoke conversation. These links are: stage productions; script
development; alt.theatre magazine; and artist and community programs.
Known publicly for impactful full-length plays, of which there are three this
year, Teesri Duniya Theatre also works all year cultivating numerous top-notch
creative community outreach series and ongoing workshops for playwrights. See
below for details.
Season
2019-20, Are We There Yet? examines
where we have arrived as a society, and how far we have left to go. The
respected theatre company puts their money where their mouth is, asking crucial
questions and moving the discussion forward. Teesri Duniya Theatre is one
of the very few culturally-inclusive companies in Canada and one-of-a-kind in
Quebec. They have produced award-winning work by visible minorities, Indigenous
communities and dominant cultures, and are proud that most of their directors
are women. The Theatre has also launched the careers of many visible minority
artists and playwrights.
Long-time Artistic Director Rahul Varma speaks to what
this season means to him: “Thirty-eight years ago Teesri Duniya Theatre
initiated the journey to make cultural diversity an accessible, ongoing factor
that everyone can enjoy. This season celebrates the human condition at its
darkest and most pressing, but also at its brightest and most jubilant
junctures.” The company continues to encourage dialogue, holding audience
talkbacks with invited guest panels and fostering community engagement.
Fireworks Playwrights Program Facilitator Deborah
Forde is proud of the three-phased approach that she and Associate Artistic
Director Liz Valdez have devised “This method allows the artist to focus
first on story development, then on stage craft, and finally to marry the two
in an outcome with a reading/performance. By the end, our writers are very
clear about what they want to say and the most effective way to convey that
story. Moreover, they have a good understanding of the partnership between
writer, director, actor and designer, and their role within that partnership.”
Teesri Duniya Theatre SEASON 2019-20: ARE WE THERE
YET?
Stage Productions: TDT is dedicated to producing
politically relevant and meaningful plays that reflect life-affecting issues
framed by a distinctly Canadian perspective.
Honour: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan by
Dipti Mehta, Oct. 3-6 at Montréal, arts interculturels. A fun, poignant yet
deeply moving coming of age story about a girl in a brothel, offering a glimpse
into the exotic, dangerous life of Mumbai’s real-life brothels and why they
exist.
Counter
Offence by Rahul Varma, March 10-29 at
the Segal Centre.
A murder mystery examining the consequences of gender
vs race and skin-colour. Counter Offence is a collision of virtues where
the struggle to end racism comes into conflict with the struggle to end
violence against women.
To Stand Again verbatim play
by Jim Forsythe, workshop production date TBA.
Based on interviews with Syrian refugees, To Stand
Again aims to voice the different challenges and hopes of these new
Canadians.
Camille: Un rendez-vous au-delà du visuel (Beyond
Sight) by Audrey-Anne Bouchard, Sept. 4-22 at Montréal, arts
interculturels. Explores how to create and communicate an artistic experience
that does not involve sight. N.B. Teesri Duniya Theatre supported Audrey-Anne
Bouchard’s independent production.
Fireworks: Play and Playwright Development
The Fireworks Playwrights Program is an intensive and
focused learning/creating workshop experience to assist emerging, socially
engaged writers, particularly artists of colour and Indigenous peoples, to
shape their written voice and professional profile. The program includes staged
readings of new plays created in the company, workshop productions of promising
writers’ plays, mentorship of emerging and newly arrived artists, and
internship opportunities for developing artists.
alt.theatre: A
publication for dialogue on culture, stage and the community
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, alt.theatre is
Canada’s only professional journal examining the intersections between
politics, cultural plurality, social activism and the stage, and is dedicated
to documenting the work of underrepresented and marginalized peoples within
performance, as well as critically engaging with the state of diversity in
Canadian art.
Artist and Community Programs
Activities designed to develop creative skills among
emerging visible minority artists and to enhance their intercultural
interaction, the fourth link of the season is a multifaceted program with
community-engaged theatre in non-official languages. This includes Sharing our Stories, Telling our Lives,
an outreach program aimed at instilling and equipping youth with tools to
create, explore and share artistic projects based on life stories; Leave-Out
Racism, to encourage an artistic response to Islamophobia, Homophobia
and otherness; and ongoing Public Education and Engagement with lecture
series, classroom-visits, community events with multiple ethno-cultural
organizations, and book launches.
Teesri Duniya Theatre, led by
Artistic Director and playwright Rahul Varma, is one of the foremost authorities
on, and advocates for, cultural inclusive practices and projects. Throughout
the year they welcome culturally diverse script submissions that examine
worldviews and historical events as well as offering playwright residencies via
the artist-in-residence program.
Change the world one play at a time
Founded in 1981, Teesri Duniya Theatre
reflects Canada’s multicultural, multiracial, and Indigenous reality, promoting
critical thinking, community connections, and intercultural dialogue.
