Newcomers: Stories of Refugee and Immigrant Children
Saturday April 15 11:00 AM & 2:00 PM
Bronfman Theatre, Pier 21
Performance is free with admission to the museum!
Please go to our For School page for details about school shows and how to book
Cast:
Adeb Adebullah Fakhry- (Afghanistan)
Harmony Adesola – (Nigeria)
V./ Vaishali Sachdeva – (India)
Sissie Wang – (China)
Creative Team:
Director: Luciana Silvestre Fernandes (Brazil)
Assistant Director: Frisia / Xinyi Li (China 重庆)
Stage Manager: Laurie Fleet (Canada)
Dramaturge: Santiago Guzmán (Mexico)
Production Manager: Patricia Vinluan (Canada)
Set, LX and Prop Design: Ian McFarlane (Canada)
Costume Design: Diego Cavedon (Brazil)
Projection Design: Christian Ludwig Hansen (Germany)
Sound Design: Riley Reign (Canada)
Sound Design Mentor: Olivia Wheeler (Canada via China, Poland & Hungary)
Poster Design: Quyen / Caroline Nguyen (Vietnam)
Writers:
Sarah Poko – (Nigeria)
Chung Sing Au / Roland – (Hong Kong)
Maureen Waithaka- (Kenya)
Tzu-Hao Hsu – (Taiwan)
Xavier Campbell – (Jamaica)
Huiyan Gao – (China)
Claudia Gutierrez – (Bolivia)
Tanya Chedrawy – (Canada via Lebanon)
Thanks to Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre for their support in the development of this work
This all-new theatrical presentation shines a light on what it’s like for a child to be a newcomer to Nova Scotia. Composed of short plays and monologues by newcomers from all over the world including Kenya, Hong Kong, China, Jamaica, Bolivia, Nigeria, and more, Newcomers: Stories of Refugee and Immigrant Children, is designed to build empathy and understanding of others’ experiences, while allowing newcomer students to see themselves and their stories reflected on stage, often for the first time.
Halifax Theatre for Young People is partnering with the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 to present this engaging play.
One of our major projects in the past year was producing a digital version of Mi’kmaw Stories: Past and Present, co-directed by Catherine Ann Martin and HTYP’s Tessa Mendel. The film was available to schools throughout Nova Scotia during Mi’kmaq History month – and we received a lot of amazing feedback!
“My 24 grade 6’s loved it! Wow… in 40 minutes we gained so much important information. I thank you for the time it took to put this all together for us to learn. The power of it was very important. This presentation should be part of the grade 6 curriculum from here on out.”
“It was great. The students were all focused on it. It also fit in with what we were working on in the Curriculum. Bringing the Arts into Social Studies is fantastic.”
“My class watched it and were engaged the whole time. It created new conversations around the culture and our (modern day) abuse of the environment and resources. The connection to the “fire keeper” and how someone was designated to keep an ember going at all times was a real talking point for us. The connection of the ember being converted back to a flame and Mi’kmaq culture being shrunk to an ember in their lowest times, and how they are now making flames again (culturally speaking) was extremely powerful. It was also awesome to see local Mi’kmaq Peoples portraying the roles!”
These new and traditional stories, written & created by Mi’kmaq artists Trevor Gould and Catherine Anne Martin with additional writing by Rita Joe, shalan joudry, and Rebecca Thomas have been augmented with archival material, and art and music by Mi’kmaq artists. We are pleased to announce that there will be a public viewing of Mi’Kmaw Stories: Past and Present in 2023 so we can share the film with community members and the general public. Stay tuned for more details!
We are excited to announce our major production for our 2022/2023 season is Newcomers: Stories from Refugee and Immigrant Children, which will be presented at Pier 21 this April, directed by Luciana Silvestre Fernandes!
As we move into 2023, we are excited for these upcoming projects, and the artists and community groups that we get to work with! We will be sending more information about all of these, as well as other projects in the pipeline, in upcoming newsletters – Sign up to hear more about our new Project Climate Change that is currently in development and the digital version of Josh MacDonald’s #IAmTheCheese that will be available to schools for a short period this coming spring!