In the summer of 2014, five young actors responded to a casting call about a play that seemed different from the works that they usually auditioned for. The play, written by Mehr Kaur, who studies theater at Smith College was about a dark subject; the violence that shook Delhi after the assassination of Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, almost thirty years earlier. Most of the text in the play was drawn from a poem, also  called Kultar's Mime, written by Sarbpreet Singh, a Boston Area writer and playwright more than two decades ago. It also incorporated text from a very famous poem by the Hebrew port, Haim Bialik in response to the massacre of the Jewish population of Kishinev, Moldova, decades earlier. Using the 1903 Kishinev pogrom as the point of departure, the play made the point that human suffering transcends race, religion, geography and culture.

The young actors, all Boston based, were told that the play would most likely be performed five times and after a Boston premiere, would travel to NYC, NJ, Ottawa and Toronto.

On Friday, January 30, Mehr Kaur's play will come back to Boston again after its 25th performance. And what a journey it has been for the cast and crew of the production!

Twenty-three acclaimed performances in four countries across three continents. Performances in Delhi on the exact 30 year anniversary of the massacre. A performance at British Parliament for MPs and members of the House of Lords. A performances before an audience of 1500 in Wolverhampton in the British Midlands. Performances at prestigious universities such as Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Carleton and many others. An outpouring of emotion from survivors of 1984 who were  invariably present in the audience everywhere the show went.

The play has garnered strong reviews in the US, Canada and India and was covered by every major newspaper in northern India. In the UK, Sarbpreet Singh and Cat Roberts, a member of the cast appeared live on the very popular Nihal Show on the BBC. A talk-back with the director and cast aired on live TV in the UK and reached hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Just recently, for the first time in 30 years the Government of India acknowledged the events of 1984 for what they were, when  the  Indian Home Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh referred to the violence, which had been earlier characterized as a 'riot',  as genocide in a speech delivered in Delhi.

A short video about the production can be viewed here :

Admission is free, but seating is limited;  tickets can be reserved here :