The ??? ?? ????Ryerson School of Performance in association with London South Bank University Arts & Creative Industries, the USC School of Dramatic Arts and Playwrights’ Arena, presents an exclusive Los Angeles presentation of “Crossing Borders” on Friday, June 1, at 8 p.m. at Martin Massman Theatre, 1029 Childs Way at the University of Southern California.
Written by Velina Hasu Houston and Alex McSweeney and starring Tetsuyoshi Alex Aoki and Amir Ibrahim, “Crossing Borders” is a commissioned international project about immigration that will be featured at the Parodos Festival in Toronto in June.
Two separate stories of migration, “Where Shadow Chases Light” by Houston and “Fragments” by McSweeney, explore a common theme in “Crossing Borders,” an international exploration of two cultures and their paths of immigration. The two cultures, Japanese and Iranian, make their way to new frontiers in North America (to Canada) and the U.K. (to London).
Three generations of a Japanese Canadian family – a grandmother in Japan, her son who emigrates to Canada, and her Japanese Canadian grandson who is fully assimilated into Canadian life — are interwoven with the fragmented recollections of a young Iranian man constructing the fractured memories of his childhood in Tehran propelled by a treasured picture that links his brother and father, and his new London existence and beyond. These moving, funny, and heroic tales are the universal story of migration — of leaving something behind for the promise of a better future.
Free. For directions, go to: https://web-app.usc.edu/maps/?id=50