MIGRATION DIARY: NEW YORK CITY EDITION to Make World Premiere at La MaMa
Carmen Lidia Vidu directs Sam Xu, Lia Fietz, Ana-Maria Bandean, and Ellen Ko in the multimedia production.
The world premiere of Migration Diary. New York City Edition, a raw, visually immersive, new multimedia theater experience, opens tonight at the legendary La Mama Experimental Theatre Club. The show is a new theatrical collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute and The National Theatre of Bucharest, created by award-winning Romanian director Carmen Lidia Vidu, running June 25 - 28, 2026.
Presented by La MaMa in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, the production brings real lives to the stage inside one of the world's most influential homes of experimental theater. No invented characters. No fictional dialogue. Just the stories people carry across borders.
Built through an extensive documentary process of interviews, personal archives, video diaries, and autobiographical testimony, Migration Diary continues the groundbreaking artistic method Vidu created more than a decade ago for her internationally acclaimed Diary of Romania (Jurnal de România) series, presented across Europe at major festivals and theaters. Performed by Sam Xu, Lia Fietz, Ana-Maria Bandean, and Ellen Ko, the show follows women whose lives passed through Romania, China, Germany, Portugal, Singapore, London, Moscow, and finally New York - and asks the question this city has always asked, and never fully answered: what does it mean to stay?
Blending live performance with haunting multimedia created by visual artist Sabina Costinel and media designer Constantin Șimon, the production transforms documentary footage, family archives, childhood photographs, digital collage, and projected imagery into a living landscape of memory, displacement, reinvention, and belonging.
Urgent, intimate, and deeply contemporary, Migration Diary. New York City Edition speaks directly to New York's immigrant soul - and to everyone who has ever left one life behind to begin another.
Performers include Sam Xu, Lia Fietz, Ana-Maria Bandean and Ellen Ko.
The production team includes Carmen Lidia Vidu (Concept, Research, Script & Artistic Director), Sabina Costinel (Multimedia Production), Constantin Șimon (Media Design) and Lizhen Mei (Styling).
La MaMa's The Club is located at 74A East 4th Street in New York City. Performances are Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 6:30pm and Sunday at 3pm. Run time is approximately 75 minutes. Post-show reception on Thu 6/25 and post-show Q&A with the artistic team on Sat 6/27. Tickets are $30 (adults) and $25 (students and seniors). First ten tickets to every performance are $10 (limit 2 per person). Ticket prices inclusive of all fees. For more info and to purchase tickets visit https://lamama.org/migrationdiary-nyc.
Presented by La MaMa
In collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute New York and 'I.L. Caragiale' National Theatre of Bucharest
With the support of the Ministry of Culture of Romania
NYC Edition Developed with Ana-Maria Bandean
Carmen Lidia Vidu is a Romanian theatre and documentary film director based in Bucharest, whose work spans theatre, film, installation, and visual arts. For over two decades, her practice has been driven by a single impulse: listening to real people and turning their stories into art. She is the only director in Romania to have received both the country's highest theatre directing award and its highest documentary film award - and only the third woman in Romanian theatre history to be honoured in this way.
Since 2017, she has served as multimedia director for the George Enescu International Festival, one of the world's premier classical music events, collaborating with conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Tan Dun, Hannu Lintu, and Giancarlo Guerrero. Her work at the festival earned two nominations at the International Opera Awards.
In 2026, her video mapping work received the Silver Trophy at the Eventex Awards in the Art Event category. Her directing vision has also crossed into fashion: Vogue Italia featured her work in both 2025 and 2026.
Photo by Richard Drutman
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