Newcomers featured new commissioned scripts written, staged and directed by racialized immigrants, focusing on the experiences of young refugee and immigrant children: the literal nightmares of learning a new language, through the struggles of looking, sounding and eating differently than all the kids around, to adjusting and finding home in Canada.

This project was the first time in my 16 years here when I met a greater community I didn't know I had: an immigrant community. I was not the only one or one of two in the rehearsal room. We all looked and sounded different; we came from all over the globe, under completely different circumstances, at different points in our lives, and yet we had had so many experiences we didn't know were shared and didn't have others to share them with.

I was truly humbled by this opportunity was honestly intimidated by what felt like a herculean task: to
represent such a large and varied community to arguably our most important and unbiased audiences of all. For many of our very excited young audience members from the school shows this was the very first play they saw-- and when during our talk backs so many of them voiced: "-It was like that for me when I first arrived" "-he reminded me of my brother" "-I understood those lines you said 'cause I also speak Farsi"  "-I am from India too!" 

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And that truly reminded me why I do this work.