By Evelyne de la Chenelière, translated by Morwyn Brebner 
March 14 – 24 2013 at the Rachel Browne Theatre

Bashir Lazhar is the acclaimed English translation of de la Chenelière’s exquisite, humanistic and topical play about a substitute teacher helping a traumatized middle school class in the wake of his own path through violent upheaval. Dispensing with conventional teaching methods, he tries to prepare his students for an unpredictable world.

Bashir Lazhar is a story concerned with the language of loss, the process of grieving and the things that compel us forward when our world is no longer recognizable. It is a celebration of survival through love.

In 2011 the play was adapted as a film entitled Monsieur Lazhar. It won the City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian Film, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film & won a Genie for Best Canadian Motion Picture.

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“A powerful but delicate human portrait of the immigrant experience: dispossession, alienation and our own habits of intolerance. And since we’re a country of immigrants, refugees from the multiple terrors of the world, we’re confronted with … our own selves” – Liz Nicholls, Edmonton Journal ; 7 Oct 2011.

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Artistic Team

Director: Ann Hodges
Bashir Lazhar:  David Adams
Lighting Design:  Hugh Conacher
Sound Designer: Chris Coyne
Set & Costumes Designer: Joan Murphy Kakoske
Stage Manager: Ivory Seol