Tomorrow Will Be Sunday

and our daily impact on it. By entering global capitals and heartland supermarkets, this epic map of a play invites us to imagine a new relationship to human value, by first unpacking what we value – uncovering a world where all populations must confront not only global migration, but their own. Celebrating a global cast: Kathleen Chalfant, Karen Kandel, Annie Henk and Julienne Kim and featuring music by world renowned Syrian vocalist Lubana Al Quntar and Palestinian oud player Zafer Tawil, this concert reading offers audiences a sneak peak in what hopes to be the first ever-expanding theatrical platform on the subject of migration.

An ambitious trans-local work researched across diasporic communities, Raffo’s Migration Play Cycle aims to be the first ever-evolving, cyclically structured play. Built as a series of interchangeable seasons (Summer, Winter, Wildfire..) the play can expand and contract, be organized around new locations and be unique to each production with bespoke scenes written for new locales. Building upon a network of global theatrical partners, live/local productions would cross pollinate with a more expansive web platform where communities could see their stories within larger global patterns. Audiences would be invited to follow the play over years, becoming part of an evolving story, much like migration itself.

As an Iraqi American playwright, migration is personal to Raffo. In 2003, she had over one hundred family members living in Iraq, she now has one cousin left in the country. In the last decade, her Iraqi relatives have scattered across four continents. Her family understands what it means to be rooted to a place for thousands of years, then to scatter in less than ten. While many audiences feel sympathetic to those impacted by war, the trajectory her family took can be traced to economic factors to which we all contribute. What started as an investigation into the forces that set her own family’s migration into motion has since grown into an exploration of how all populations must confront not only global migration, but their own.

SUPPORTERS

The Migration Play Cycle: A New Theatrical Platform by Heather Raffo is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund project co-commissioned by the Arab American National Museum, Art2Action, the Carver Community Cultural Center, and NPN (more information: www.npnweb.org). This concert reading of Tomorrow Will Be Sunday (part of the Migration Play Cycle) is produced by Art2Action, Inc. Previous commissions and development came through the McCarter Theater and The Playwrights Center’s McKnight National Residency. Developmental readings were supported by Chautauqua Theater and Ojai Playwrights Conference; and the Arab American National Museum, with support from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) ArtsForward grant, made possible through support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Most recently, Heather received a Creative Capital award for the Migration Play Cycle: A New Theatrical Platform.