UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Notice to Appear

Irina Kruzhilina / Visual Echo

Presented by La MaMa

#Work-in-Progress, #NYC-Based Artist, #UTR Alumni

photo credit: Brett Keyser

Notice to Appear is a live theatrical performance and staged public tribunal conceived, written, and directed by Irina Kruzhilina. It exposes the dysfunctional dynamics of the U.S. immigration court system and the often-opaque forces that determine asylum seekers’ fates. This theater work interrogates the roles of those working inside today’s immigration courts and asks what responsibility the public bears for a system operating largely out of sight. Notice to Appear draws on extensive research—including dozens of immigration court observations, public records and interviews with asylum seekers, immigration judges, former ICE attorneys, immigration lawyers and court interpreters. The project has been developed in close dialogue with people whose lives and professions are embedded in the system it examines, including several immigration judges dismissed by the current administration.

Notice to Appear is not a verbatim play. It exists between documentary and fiction, using composite characters, condensed testimony and reconstructed scenes to protect the identities of those whose experiences inform the work while preserving the factual integrity and dramatic force of their accounts. By transforming the immigration courtroom into a theatrical and civic space, Notice to Appear brings a normally hidden world into public view.

“An electrically authentic new voice at the table of global theatremaking”
– Broadway DNA

CREDITS

Cast: Kathleen Chalfant, Suli Holum
Acting Ensemble: The NTA ensemble consists of six first- or second-generation immigrant professional actors who perform multiple roles throughout the production. They portray asylum seekers from their own countries of origin, as well as immigration judges, ICE attorneys, lawyers, court interpreters, and witnesses appearing before the Tribunal.
Creators: Irina Kruzhilina and Thijs Beuming
Writer and Director: Irina Kruzhilina
Research Dramaturg: Thijs Beuming
Script Dramaturgs: John Eisner and Crystal Skillman
Music Direction: Marlon Saunders
Movement Direction: Suli Holum
Assistant Director: Rebecca Berger
Visual Echo Producer: Irina Kruzhilina
Dream Stack Productions Producer: Sara Stackhouse
Immigration Law Consultants: Lenni Benson (Chair in Immigration and Human Rights Law at New York Law School and Founder of Safe Passage Project), Carmen Maria Rey Caldas (Former Immigration Judge), Olivia Cassin (Former Immigration Judge), Kyle Dandelet (Former Immigration Judge), Karen Musalo (Professor, UC Law San Francisco, and Founding Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Irina Kruzhilina is an award-winning director, playwright, scenographer, experience designer, professor and artistic director working across visual art, live performance and civic engagement. Since 2000, Irina has created performances spanning interdisciplinary theatre, large-scale parades, opera and site-responsive installations. Her work has appeared at Times Square, Tokyo Disney, BAM, Prague National Theatre, the NY Philharmonic, the Barbican Center and ArtsEmerson. In 2024, Irina launched SpaceBridge, a workshop and performance program uniting 20 refugee and American children, most of them new to the stage. Irina is the founder of Visual Echo, a NYC–based organization creating performance and educational programs that foster dialogue across communities. Irina is associate professor at The New School of Drama, where she co-developed and leads the MFA in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. She is a La MaMa resident artist, a MacDowell fellow, and recipient of the 2024 Joan D. Firestone Fund and 2024 Elliot Norton awards.

Visual Echo creates and presents original, visually arresting, politically charged live performances that ignite public dialogue around urgent social issues. Through deep, multi-year research and sustained partnerships with communities directly connected to each project, we investigate questions of immigration, displacement, polarization, and peacebuilding. Our work brings documentary material into conversation with speculative storytelling, immersive environments, and participatory performance. We use theatre to examine the systems shaping our lives, and to challenge their seeming inevitability by giving visible, tangible, embodied form to what we might create in their place.

FUNDING + SUPPORT

Notice to Appear is produced by Visual Echo in association with Dream Stack Productions. The project is supported by DCLA, NYSCA, LMCC, Peacedale Global Arts, the Venturous Theatre Fund, Joyee Deb and Piyush Jain, and has been developed through residencies at Mercury Store, Baryshnikov Arts Center, MacDowell, North American Cultural Laboratory’s Deep Space Residency and En Garde Arts’ Uncommon Voices program.

VENUE NOTES + ACCESSIBILITY

La MaMa
Downstairs Theatre
66 East 4th Street

By Subway: N/Q/R/W at 8th Street/NYU, 4/6 at Bleeker Street, F at 2nd Avenue.

Accessibility
La MaMa welcomes all audiences to experience work made by our artists in our many spaces, and we offer the following services to meet the needs of our audiences. If you have questions about accessibility services at La MaMa, please call our box office at 646-430-5374 or email boxoffice@lamama.org. Accessible entrances are located at 74A E 4th Street, 66 E 4th Street, and 47 Great Jones. Please call our box office at 646-430-5374 or email boxoffice@lamama.org with questions or any specific requests. Restrooms open to the public are in the Ellen Stewart Theatre lobby, the Downstairs Theatre lobby, and the 74A E 4th Street lobby. A staff member can direct you to the elevator to reach the restrooms. Elevators are located in 74A E 4th Street, 66 E 4th Street, and 47 Great Jones. Open captioning is available for select performances.

Appropriate Age Range
Recommended for adult audiences.