MIGRAAAAANTS! Comes to ExPats Theatre

Expats Theatre will present the live stage production of Migraaaaants! Or There's too Many of Us in this Damn Boat by Romanian-French playwright Matéi Visniec opening Saturday, March 16th at 7:30 pm and closing April 7th at Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lab 2, 1333 H St NE in Washington, DC. Migraaaaants is directed by Karin Rosnizeck.

 The play:  Migraaaaants! is a dark comedy, written in 26 short vignettes exploring the plight of migrants as they cross seas, deal with profiteers, face dehumanization and exploitation, navigate inscrutable bureaucracies, being reduced to a threatening anonymous mass of foreigners (us vs them) and instrumentalized as bargaining chips for political power play.  Visniec, who has also reported about migration for Radio France Internationale and visited many of the headline making hotspots (the Jungle of Calais, the Islands of Lampedusa and Lesvos, important borders of the so called “Balkan route” etc.) bases his scenes on grim facts and shocking realities while using dark, provocative humor, satire, slapstick and elements of the absurd to call attention to one of the biggest tragedies of our time. Written in 2016, as a reaction to the European refugee crisis, the play is urgently relevant today, as new conflict zones have dramatically increased the numbers of refugees and the debates over migration – currently taking center stage in election races around the world – have become even more polarizing. Migraaaaants! is a wake-up call humanizing the dehumanizing experience of millions of displaced people.

The Playwright:  Matéi Visniec is a Romanian-born dramatist, poet and novelist living in Paris. Growing up under the despotic Ceausescu Regime, where he studied philosophy and started writing, Visniec left Romania in 1987 applying for political asylum in France where he is still living and working today. As a bilingual and bi-cultural author and political journalist having lived in Eastern and Western Europe, Visniec has become a relevant voice in contemporary European theatre and in the intellectual debate on burning issues of European society.  In post-communist Romania, Visniec is now celebrated as the most performed playwright.

His impressive literary oeuvre has won him many international awards and his plays have been translated into more than 30 languages and produced world-wide. (see https://www.visniec.com/)

After The Body of a Woman as Battlefield which dealt with sexual violence as a weapon of war, Migraaaaants! is Expats Theatre's second collaboration with Matéi Visniec. 

The Cast:  Migraaaaants features an ensemble of six actors each playing 6 different characters:

Vivian Allvin.

Brock Brown.

Eli El.

George Kassouf.

Irina Koval.

Ege Yalcinbas.

Production and Creative Team:

Director: Karin Rosnizeck

Stage Manager: Willow McFatter

Set Designer/Projection Designer: Jonathan Dahm Robertson

Lighting Designer: Ian Claar

Costume Designer: Alisa Mandel

Voice Coach: Hilary Kacser

Movement Coach:  George Kassouf

Fight Choreographer:  Eli El

Sound Designer: Aria Velz

Props Designer: Martin Bernier

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