Refugee-Led Theatre

Theatrical drama has grappled with the issues surrounding refugees and migrancy for hundreds of years. Euripides’ The Trojan Women examined the fate of a city of women decimated by the brutal murders of their husbands as they prepare for their new lives as slaves. In the early twentieth century, Yiddish theatre frequently dwelled upon the challenges faced by late-nineteenth/early twentieth-century Jewish immigrants to America and their persecution during the violent pogroms in the Russian Empire. More recently, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined explores the realities of life during a civil war, drawing on interviews with girls and women living in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today, in the midst of an ever-increasing global refugee crisis, refugee-led theatre seeks to work with and on behalf of refugees, exiles, and migrants, to create theatre that explores and reflects upon their journeys and the problems they faced. This guide will explore contemporary theatre companies and movements that are completely migrant and refugee-led and their impact upon the theatrical community.

Key Dates, Events, & Genres

• 1976 - Bond Street Theatre is founded in New York City.
• 1987 - Bond Street Theatre held theatre workshops in Montreal, designed especially for teen refugees from countries in conflict.
• 2001 - World Refugee Day is held for the first time on June 20th.
• 2002 - Bond Street Theatre initiated performing arts programs for children, youth, and teachers in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.
• 2016 - Alleyway Radical Theatre devise Here I Am, exploring refugees’ experiences of borders.
• 2017 - The Jungle premieres at the Young Vic Theatre. It transfers to St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn the following year.