Notice to Appear

A live theatrical performance and staged public tribunal conceived, written, and directed by Irina Kruzhilina. It exposes the dysfunctional dynamics of the U.S. immigration court system and the often-opaque forces that determine asylum seekers’ fates. This theater work interrogates the roles of those working inside today’s immigration courts and asks what responsibility the public bears for a system operating largely out of sight. Notice to Appear draws on extensive research—including dozens of immigration court observations, public records and interviews with asylum seekers, immigration judges, former ICE attorneys, immigration lawyers and court interpreters. The project has been developed in close dialogue with people whose lives and professions are embedded in the system it examines, including several immigration judges dismissed by the current administration. Notice to Appear is not a verbatim play. It exists between documentary and fiction, using composite characters, condensed testimony and reconstructed scenes to protect the identities of those whose experiences inform the work while preserving the factual integrity and dramatic force of their accounts. By transforming the immigration courtroom into a theatrical and civic space, Notice to Appear brings a normally hidden world into public view.