'Introducing Staging Asylum, Again, an anthology that exposes Australia's mistreatment of people seeking refuge. Building on the success of its predecessor, this collection presents a timely and powerful exploration archive of artistic resistance to one of Australia's most enduring and unjust policies. The anthology showcases a diverse range of plays that delve into different facets of seeking asylum. Tribunal, devised and performed by Kaz Therese, Joe Tan, Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor, Mahdi Mohammadi, Katie Green, Paul Dwyer, and Jawad Yaqoubi, immerses readers in a truth and reconciliation commission, where newly arrived refugees and a First Nations Elder share poignant testimonies. We All Know What's Happening, conceived by Samara Hersch and Lara Thoms, involves seven young Australians devising a show about the incarceration of refugee children their age. Finally, The Audition, written by Patricia Cornelius, Sahra Davoudi, Tes Lyssiotis, Wahibe Moussa, Milad Norouzi, Melissa Reeves, and Christos Tsiolkas, is a metatheatrical play that draws parallels between an actor's audition and an asylum seeker's application for protection. The volume also includes three one-act plays showcased at the 2015 Asylum festival. Noëlle Janaczewska's Going for Gold, Tania Cañas' Three Angry Australians, and Georgia Symon's A Puppet Show for All Ages. Editors Tania Cañas and Caroline Wake provide an introduction to the volume, along with individual essays about each play. Staging Asylum, Again is a testament to the power of theatre to shed light on injustice and spark dialogue, making it an essential read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Australia's border policies and their impacts.' (Publication summary)
'A note of defiance draws these two new editions on refugee theatre together: both are reaffirmations of the significance of theatre, stage and performance in the politics and aesthetics of protest and refugee resistance now. This collection of plays is the second Staging Asylum anthology. The first was published by Currency Press and edited by Emma Cox in 2013, and it presented a collection of six plays from refugee-related theatre in response to the Howard-era Pacific Solution. This return to staging asylum includes a history of the significance of the stage in the resistance to Operation Sovereign Borders. It is, the editors argue, both terrible and incredible that another anthology is needed. Staging Asylum, Again presents a theatrically adventurous and formally diverse second generation of plays and their new genres: a “decolonial” theatre that places the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees alongside those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and theatre made by, with and about children.' (Introduction)
'A note of defiance draws these two new editions on refugee theatre together: both are reaffirmations of the significance of theatre, stage and performance in the politics and aesthetics of protest and refugee resistance now. This collection of plays is the second Staging Asylum anthology. The first was published by Currency Press and edited by Emma Cox in 2013, and it presented a collection of six plays from refugee-related theatre in response to the Howard-era Pacific Solution. This return to staging asylum includes a history of the significance of the stage in the resistance to Operation Sovereign Borders. It is, the editors argue, both terrible and incredible that another anthology is needed. Staging Asylum, Again presents a theatrically adventurous and formally diverse second generation of plays and their new genres: a “decolonial” theatre that places the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees alongside those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and theatre made by, with and about children.' (Introduction)
