Made In Exile

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image of a plane wing against the birds eye view of the Himalayas. large red text says made in exile, audio dramas

Theatre Passe Muraille is excited to reconnect with community partner Made in Exile to bring you 3 short audio dramas written and performed by Tibetan artists based in Toronto. The audio dramas were developed in the Made in Exile Playwriting Unit this past summer under the mentorship of Nina Lee Aquino. The scripts were then produced into audio dramas in association with Theatre Passe Muraille. 

JOIN US on Wednesday Dec 8th, 2021 at 8:30pm EST for an online listening party of the audio dramas followed by a Q&A with the playwrights on Zoom.

If you wish to sign up please email us at info@passemuraille.on.ca

Trailer

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2043 Written by Tenzin Nawang Tekan

It is 2043, ten years after Tibet has gained independence. Passang and Dhondup are two Tibetan-Canadians on an all expenses paid trip to their ancestral home – Tibet. On the flight to Lhasa they try to find common ground but come to realize that there are few things they agree on.

Coming to Toronto Written by Kalsang Yangzom

Coming to Toronto Written by Kalsang Yangzom
This drama about family and sacrifice brings us Ani Choekyi and her niece Tseyang, living in Toronto and Mussoorie respectively. Ani Choekyi’s trip to Mussoorie is more than just a family visit and we see how far they are willing to go to do right by their loved ones.

SeMarkar སད་མར་དཀར༎ Written by Youdon Tsamotshang

Bod GyalKhab, the Kingdom of Tibet, was known as such after the conquest of ZhangZhung by Gyalpo Songtsen Gampo. His sister Semarkar is married off to ZhangZhung’s king for a strategic alliance but Semarkar refuses to be a pawn or settle for an alliance.

Playwrights

Graphic shows Tenzin, a Himalayan woman, smiling at the camera. She has brown hair that stops five inches below her shoulders. She is wearing a forest green shirt.

བསྟན་འཛིན་ངག་དབང་བཀྲས་ཁང་Tenzin Nawang Tekan was born in Kathmandu, Nepal. She spent her formative years in Mussoorie, India, where she completed her primary and secondary education. She immigrated to the United States and then Canada as an adult. This is her first time participating in a Made in Exile program. Like many diasporic Tibetans, she has been grappling with questions of identity, home and belonging. Her piece asks a question she doesn’t yet have an answer to: what does it mean to be Tibetan?

Graphic is of Kalsang, a Himalayan woman. She has black hair on the top and light brown hair on the bottom half. She is wearing a white shirt and has black sunglasses sitting on top of her head.

སྐལ་བཟང་དབྱང་འཛོམས་ Kalsang Yangzom holds an MPhil in English Literature from the University of Delhi. While most of her previous publications have been academic, it is fiction that she really practices in her free time. She is an avid reader and a rather reluctant writer who has recently arrived Canada this year. This is her first time participating in a Made in Exile program. You can find some of her work on her blog- https://phoenixandthedragon.wordpress.com/

Graphic shows Youdon who is a Himalayan woman with black hair up top that ombres out to a honey blonde colour from under her ears to the ends of her hair, which stops approximately four inches below her shoulders. She is wearing a black shirt and the background is a brick wall.

གཡུ་སྒྲོན་ཚ་མོ་ཚང་Youdon Tsamotshang is a Tibetan Canadian, born in India. This is her first playwriting program, having also done four cycles of the Made In Exile Theatre and Storytelling program. She is inspired to tell stories that present a nuanced understanding of the Tibetan identity.

Creative Team

Graphis shows Phillip standing infront of a blurred out beach view, looking into the camera. He has medium length brown hair on top of his head and is wearing a grey v neck shirt with a dark blue button up over top, unbuttoned.

Philip Jonah Logan Geller is a Métis (Red River) and Jewish (Ashkenazi) artist and educator,
who is focused on decolonizing his process by listening to and dialoguing with ancestral and cultural knowledge. Their practice includes land-based creation, circular storytelling, and destabilizing hierarchical power structures in the rehearsal process, with a focus on anti-oppressive/anti-racist modalities. He is a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship funded Master of Fine Arts directing candidate at York University. They work as
the Co-Director of the Emerging Creators Unit at Buddies in Bad Times, an instructor at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, the Residency Director and Designer for Gwaandak Theatre, and the mentor for the Director’s Lab at Paprika Festival. As a storyteller he has worked across
Turtle Island as an actor, director, dramaturg, producer, clown and devisor. They will be continuing their learning by pursuing a Master’s in Urban Indigenous Education.

Graphic shoes Nikki, smiling at the camera. She is standing in front of the outside of a garage door and is wearing a blue button up shirt. She has long dark brown hair and is wearing red lipstick.

​​Nikki Shaffeeullah (she/her) is a director, writer, actor, facilitator, and activist who creates theatre, film, and poetry. Currently, Nikki is a curator with National Arts Centre – English Theatre, a core artist-facilitator with Confluence Arts Collective, and a resident artist with Why Not Theatre. Past roles include artistic director of The AMY Project and editor-in-chief of alt.theatre magazine. Nikki believes that art should disrupt the status

Graphic shows Rinchen, a Himalayan woman, smiling at the camera. She is wearing a cream coloured scarf.

རིན་ཆེན་སྒྲོལ་མ་|Rinchen Dolma was born in Kathmandu, Nepal and is currently based in Tkarón:to. She is a community arts practitioner, performer, an emerging playwright, dramaturge and director. She is also the founder and Artistic Director of MADE IN EXILE. In 2019, Rinchen was selected into the Paprika Festival’s Directors Lab where she workshopped her first short play སྒྲོལ་མ་ [DOLMA] at Aki Studios. Most recently, Rinchen joined Factory Theatre’s Foundry 2021 program, a new work creation group, where she has been developing a full-length play called “July 1st.” She is the recipient of the Cahoots Theatre 2021 Promising Pen Prize and the 2020 Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Program in Artistic Direction under Marjorie Chan at Theatre Passe Muraille.

With a string of firsts in Asian Canadian theatre, Nina Lee Aquino was the founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian theatre company, organized the first Asian Canadian theatre conference, edited the first (2-volume) Asian Canadian play anthology, and co-edited the first (award-winning) book on Asian Canadian theatre. She became Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre, currently holds the same position at Factory Theatre and is President of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT). She has directed at theatres across the country and has won the Ken McDougall Award, the John Hirsch Prize, the Toronto Theatre Critics Awards for Best Director, and three Dora Awards for Outstanding Direction. Nina has taught, and directed at educational institutions such as Humber College, University of Guelph, University of Toronto Mississauga-Sheridan, Ryerson University, York University, and the National Theatre School. Nina is an honorary member of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research, and was recently appointed Adjunct Professor at York University’s Department of Theatre. Her leadership has extended into mentoring theatre students and emerging artists and was the 2019 winner of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Margo Bindhart and Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award

Graphic shows Mickey, a Himalayan man, smiling at the camera, wearing a red shirt.

​​Miquelon Rodriguez is a sound designer, editor, and mixer; music composer; digital content creator; actor; and an emerging arts leader based in Toronto. He was the Apprentice Artistic Director at Factory Theatre from 2017- 2019, under the mentorship of Nina Lee Aquino, and co-curated Pan-Asian works over two seasons at Soulpepper Theatre Company. He is currently an Artistic Leadership Resident with the National Theatre School of Canada and has worked as a sound designer/composer with a multitude of artists and companies in different

Instagram: @troysteel & @troysteelplays
Twitter: @djtronix & @troysteelplays
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/troysteel
provinces across Turtle Island.

Graphic shows Nicole, smiling at the camera. She is wearing a multicoloured horizontal zigzag shirt. She has dark brown hair medium length hair and is standing in front of a red and purple background.

Nicole is a Toronto based mixed-race multidisciplinary artist with a passion for performance and technology. She is fascinated with cyborgs and Loïe Fuller. Among other things, she is a stage manager, projection designer, actor, writer. More recently, she has branched out into producing podcasts, delving into live-streaming, and experimenting in AR and VR. She’s worked with companies like Theatre Passe Muraille, CanadianStage, Hart House Theatre, Single Thread Theatre Company, Safeword, b current, Ghostlight.ca. She has also been in festivals such as Toronto Fringe, Next Stage, and Summerworks.

Actors

Starring in: 2043
Graphic shows Pema, a Himalayan man, staring at the camera. It is a close up headshot in black and white. he is wearing a turtleneck.

Pema is a refugee from Tibet who has always been fascinated by different methods of storytelling. He likes to explore various themes and platforms to listen to stories of others and share his own. Pema is a participant of the most recent Theatre & Storytelling program in 2020.

Graphic shows Lanze, a Himalayan woman, smiling lightly at the camera. She has brown shoulderlength hair and is wearing a white crew neck shirt.

Lanze is a student and first generation settler in Tkaronto. Like her character Passang, she has always lived in exile and struggles with questions of identity and what it means to be Tibetan. Lanze participated in the documentary filmmaking, theatre, and carpet weaving cycles created by Made in Exile. She has worked and volunteered in different capacities in the Tibetan community. This is her first radio play. She participated in Made in Exile’s 2018 Film Intensive, the 2019/2020 Theatre & Storytelling program and Weaving program.

Starring in: Coming to Toronto
Graphic shows Chemi, a Himalayan woman, sitting down cross legged, smiling at the camera. She is wearing a Blue top and matching Blue bottoms. She has brown hair with some light brown accent pieces in her hair.

འཆི་མེད་ ལྷ་མོ་ Chemi Lhamo is a community organizer, writer and an actor. She believes in the magic of intergenerational bridges that consists of radical love, which heals communities with trauma. She was a participant of the first Theatre & Storytelling program of Made in Exile in 2016.

Graphic shows Youdon who is a Himalayan woman with black hair up top that ombres out to a honey blonde colour from under her ears to the ends of her hair, which stops approximately four inches below her shoulders. She is wearing a black shirt and the background is a brick wall.

གཡུ་སྒྲོན་ཚ་མོ་ཚང་Youdon Tsamotshang is a Tibetan Canadian, born in India. This is her first playwriting program, having also done four cycles of the Made In Exile Theatre and Storytelling program. She is inspired to tell stories that present a nuanced understanding of the Tibetan identity.

Starring in: SeMarkar
Graphic shows Dorjee, a Himalayan man, looking out a window, while holding a book he is reading. You can see his reflection in the window. The sky is bright blue with some white fluffy clouds in the background behind him.

Born in Tibet, Dorjee was raised by a single mother until he was exiled in 1996. He is an emerging theatre creator and an aspiring actor who moved to Toronto in 2018. He discovered Made in Exile through attending their last in person showcase at the Theatre Centre in 2019. To date he has participated in Made in Exile’s Theatre program and Film Intensive and is excited to share his voice to the playwriting unit.

Graphic shows Norbu, a Himalayan man, smiling at the camera. He has black short hair and is standing in front of a red brick wall.

Norbu is a Boudha bred Tibetan dancer who hails from Kathmandu,Nepal. He was a participant in the first Made In Exile Theatre and Storytelling program. He has always had a passion for self-expression through art and movement.

Graphic shows Tenzin, a Himalayan woman, standing in a field, smiling at the camera. She has light brown hair and wears glasses. She is wearing a jean jacket.

Tenzin Chime aka Tsomo is a Tibetan, born and brought up in exile in Nepal. Since moving to Toronto in 2016, she got involved with MADE IN EXILE, first as a participant in its theatre program and later as the Administrative Director, where she co-developed arts programming for Tibetan youth in Toronto. She has written and directed two plays: Reality Check (2016) & ངལ་གསོ་ (2017), and acted in multiple theatrical pieces.

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