Bochra Manai, vice chair of the Silk Road Institute (L), and Deborah Forde, the director of The Domestic Crusaders (R), sat down for an interview with Radio Canada International to talk about what inspired the Silk Road Threatre, Canada's first Muslim professional theatre company, and their upcoming play. (Marie-Claude Simard/RCI)

Canada’s first professional Muslim theatre company launches in Montreal

Drawing on Montreal’s multicultural artistic talent, Canada’s first professional Muslim theatre company is set to make history Thursday, hoping to build bridges of understanding and dialogue with the wider Canadian society.

The Silk Road Theatre is set to open its maiden season with the presentation of The Domestic Crusaders, a critically acclaimed play written by Wajahat Ali, a celebrated American playwright.

The theatre company is hoping to give voice to a community that rarely has the opportunity to tell its own stories, especially on stage, said Bochra Manai, vice chair of the Silk Road Institute, a Muslim non-profit group dedicated to promoting arts and culture in Canada that is driving force behind the company.

“We needed to have our spaces to share and to tell our narratives,” Manai said in an interview with Radio Canada International.

Deborah Forde, former director of the Quebec Drama Federation, said she had no hesitation when she was approached to direct the play that talks about the experience of Islamophobia in the United States post 9/11.

“We have a play that looks at these huge mega-issues but puts it in the heart of one family,” Forde said. “The writer isn’t wagging his finger at us and trying to proselytize us. What he does, he lets this family tell us and show us their story and let us understand what it is like to be inside of that.”

(Watch the full interview with Bochra Manai and Deborah Forde)

Deconstructing Islamophobia

Bochra said it was important for the newly created company to start with a subject that is painfully familiar to many North American Muslims.

“It’s about how Islamophobia has impacts on our everyday lives and everyday conversations,” Bochra said.

It’s an important story to tell in order to shatter harmful stereotypes, Forde said.

“We don’t want to do these things to our neighbours,” Forde said. “If we understood what we are doing, when we ‘other’ another, then I think we wouldn’t do it. But we don’t understand the harm it does. And so this play is really important in that way.”

Support from the wider theatrical community

The newly created company received support from the Michaëlle Jean Foundation and the Inspirit Foundation.

It was also warmly embraced by Montreal’s theatrical and artistic community, including the Teesri Duniya Theatre, from the Black Theatre Workshop and Infinitheatre, Forde said.

“We have an incredible community here,” Forde said. “And as soon as we said, ‘We want to do this, we want to be in Montreal,’ the community came forward.”

But even with all that help casting for the play was a challenge, Forde said.

“Normally I do one casting call and there are so many actors that are hungry, I get more people than I can see in a day,” Forde said. “The truth is this time we did three casting calls and then we still had to go out and look individually, talk to people and say, ‘Hey, who do you know? Who can you find?’”

The play opens on Thursday, Sept. 27 at Espace Knox theatre. It will run until Oct. 6, 2018.

Manai said they are hoping to see I diverse audience fill up the chairs in the theatre.

“Everyone is invited to learn about how an American or a Canadian family could live these kind of issues, how this big political issue is experienced in our everyday lives,” Manai said. “Of course, we want also Muslim communities to come and see The Domestic Crusaders.”

Manai said the company is also looking at the possibility of future productions in French.

“We also think that in Quebec we have to offer in French spaces to deconstruct Islamophobia,” Manai said.

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