Notice to Appear is an interactive experience, live theatrical performance, and staged public tribunal. Notice to Appear exposes the dysfunctional dynamics of the U.S. immigration courts and the forces determining asylum seekers’ fate. It interrogates the roles of all court actors—and the public’s responsibility—in the asylum crisis. 

A crucial part of the asylum process is the Individual Merits Hearing, where immigration judges determine whether someone stays or is deported. These rulings vanish into a black hole—unseen, unrecorded, inaccessible. Based on months of research—dozens of first-hand court observations, interviews with judges, ICE attorneys, asylum seekers, immigration lawyers and interpreters— Notice to Appear transforms this hidden world into participatory civic theater.

The play unfolds in of three parts. In the first interactive part, audience members meet a cast of six asylum seekers—composite characters drawn from real cases we have documented. Through participatory activities, spectators join the asylum seekers as they prepare for their hearings: completing immigration forms, submitting to biometric screenings, practicing testimony in a simulated attorney consultation. 

The second part is a highly theatrical, live-cinema–mediated staging of contemporary court hearings that interweaves the stories of six refugees, culminating in the judges’ decisions to either grant or deny asylum.

The third part shifts into the near future with a staged public tribunal that exposes the forces and actors driving the asylum crisis. Based on interviews with key stakeholders, actors portray “witnesses” (Immigration Judge, ICE attorney, lawyer, court interpreter, politician, and refugee) who testify before an audience-committee about their role in the system’s collapse.

Notice to Appear is produced by Visual Echo in association with Dream Stack Productions. The project is supported by NYSCA, LMCC, and the Venturous Theatre Fund and has been developed through residencies at Mercury Store and NACL, as well as En Garde Arts’ Uncommon Voices program.