Building on previous years’ critical, popular and award-winning successes, Teesri Duniya Theatre (TDT) Artistic Director Rahul Varma is honored to announce the company’s 43rd season of topical, meaningful and insightful programming—Staging Freedom.
Teesri Duniya Theatre Season 2024-25: Staging Freedom is a theatrical response to war, occupation and genocide. This packed season comprises two top-notch mainstage productions; ongoing play development; and various art-inspired community outreach activities—film screenings, art installations, music, poetry—to initiate discussion and unite audiences. See below for details.
Two stage Productions:
TDT is dedicated to producing politically relevant, bold and profound plays that reflect life-affecting issues framed by a distinctly Canadian perspective.
Two Birds One Stone by Rimah Jabr and Natasha Greenblatt, directed by Murdoch Schon, Oct. 20 – Nov. 5, at Rangshala Studio.
Rimah Jabr is a Muslim Palestinian, and Natasha Greenblatt is a Jewish Canadian. Two Birds One Stone investigates the forces that push us through time and across continents to find each other. It is a fictionalized documentary play that crisscrosses history and reveals hidden truths about the war—featuring two dynamic performances from two very different performers playing dozens of characters on both sides of the wall. Two Birds One Stone asks complicated questions about identity, privilege and home.
Keffiyeh Made in China by Dalia Taha, directed by Chelsea Dab Hilke, April 10 – 27, 2025 at Rangshala Studio.
Keffiyeh Made in China is a powerful play of seven vignettes bound together in an unfolding story, with six actors playing multiple characters who explore how even the most intimate relationships and everyday activities subvert ordinary Palestinian life under colonization and occupation.
As with every TDT season, each production offers several facilitated discussions between experts and the public. Combined with additional programming, this season’s plays turn Palestinian invisibility into a theatrical expression beyond media portrayal.
Inter-arts events by artists and community groups: varied art-inspired presentations prior to, in between and after the productions:
Ex Tenebris, a short nonfiction, animated film by Sarah Nogues, in collaboration with Palestinian artist Najat Taji El-Khairy and Egyptian poet and photographer Ehab Lotayef. It tells a story of colonialism through drawings, paintings and historical photographs. It will be screened in the lobby throughout the presentation of both plays.
Monologues For Dialogueby various artists, directed/curated by Aladeen Tawfeek; First Edition is Nov. 28, the Second Edition is Feb. 5, 2025 at Rangshala Studio. Tawfeek invites artists of all cultural backgrounds and religions to express their thoughts reflecting war and occupation. This is an ongoing series of monologues on broad themes: ceasefire, genocide, peace and freedom. The aim is for the monologues to generate dialogue between both the artists and the public.
Films curated by TDT Board members Dipti Gupta, Rusual Al-Shawkat and Iftekhar Ahmed in partnership with Cinema with a Conscience, at Rangshala Studio. A series of films that are seldom shown, starting with Where Olive Trees Weep, featuring Palestinian journalist Ashira Darwish, activist Ahed Tamimi, Israeli journalist Amira Hass and Canadian Physician Dr. Gabor Maté. Filmmakers will be in attendance, check TDT website for films and dates.
Cocoons – Between Earth and Heaven, art installation and performancesOrganized by Ehab Lotayef, this powerful art installation is by anonymous exiled Iraqi painter/sculptor known as The Babylonian. The work depicts images of children clinging to the world or departing from it in shroud-like cocoons, hanging like amulets on the neck of the sky; the plight of children caught in recurring war and never-ending destruction. Against the backdrop of the exhibit will be varied performative activities—poetry, music and community conversation.
Face-to-Face is a debate between opposing viewpoints on themes of war and conflict; a Palestinian questions a Jewish person and vice-versa, starting in 2025.
Food for Thought – a podcast series led by Rusual Al-Shawkat and Cristina Alejandra Jiménez Gómez
Vital workshops:
The Fireworks Playwrights Program is an intensive, structured and guided play development program. It is designed to assist playwrights, including artists of colour and Indigenous peoples, queer and gender-diverse individuals, to develop their voice and professional profile. Fireworks is a development program for new and original plays; a daring space for experimentation, for a new generation of writers who speak to current Canadian consciousness.
The Flow, testimonial play development led by Peruvian theatre director Diego López. Working with memories and documents, participants explore personal experiences and stories to create a testimonial play.
Boal in Montreal, a workshop series on renoviction, based on the format of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Created by Teesri Duniya Theatre and MBC Productions, led by Fred Azeredo, Alice Wu and Dana Prather, there will be final performances on Nov. 21 – 24.
Trans-Formation, a storytelling project highlighting stories of BIPOC people identifying as transgender, led by Iftekhar Ahmed and artist Siya Pandit.
Join us in the movement—together, we can change the world, one play at a time!