Side Theatre
Festival.
THREE DAYS OF DIASPORA THEATRE
Six original works, written and performed by the people who lived them, premiere at Concordia University’s EV Building.
A stage for stories
Hive Theatre presents the first edition of the Side Theatre Festival, a three-day festival dedicated to theatre by emerging artists of the diaspora. From Friday, November 27 to Sunday, November 29, 2026, six new works will be performed at Concordia University’s EV Building in downtown Montréal. This festival also offers free hybrid workshops to the public.
The festival is built for artists who rarely find a place on Canadian stages: immigrants, refugees, people of colour, and those working outside grant systems and established theatre programming. This is a place where everyone can present their stories in their own mother tongue.
Lived. Written. Performed.
Four out of these six performances are brought to life based on the lived experiences of their creators. This festival promotes works by individuals from different but often non-art-related backgrounds who have a story to tell but could not find the right stage for it.
Over the past 6 months, the festival’s mentors, Maryam Hashempour and Amineh Sharifi, along with Syd Hamidreza Hosseini, the festival’s artistic director, have worked closely with these artists, helping turn personal stories into finished pieces for the stage.
“These artists didn’t come to theatre through institutions. They came to it because they had something they needed to say. The Side Theatre Festival exists so those stories have a stage, and so the people telling them are witnessed.”
SYD HAMIDREZA HOSSEINI, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Six new works
Restless Leg Syndrome
Hamed Sadat BarikaniRecovery
Amir PakdelDiyari
Darya RabaniWhere Is Here?
Sara FallahiName, Date, Session
Mina Zaghari (Toronto)Land of Cypress
Narges Bagheri (Ottawa)Meet the artists
Mina Zaghari
Name, Date, Session
Darya Rabani
Diyari
Sara Fallahi
Where Is Here?
Amir Pakdel
Recovery
Hamed Barikani
Restless Leg Syndrome
Narges Bagheri
Land of Cypress
Space to explore
Writing in Diaspora
With Maryam Hashempour
The Gifts of the Performer's Craft
With Paolo Gruni
Thinking About a Place
With Iliya Giahchi
Acting in times of crisis
With Cristina Alejandra Jiménez Gómez
Dates, times and registration details will be announced soon.
Guiding the work
Maryam Hashempour
Mentor
Amineh Sharifi
Mentor
Executive Team
Cristina Alejandra Jiménez Gómez
Managing Co-Director
Nastaran Pourtaherian
Managing Co-Director
Paolo Gruni
Production Coordinator
Kamyar Noak Karimi
Technical Director
Ghazal Azizi
Communication Coordinator
Parsa Sahidian
Technical Assistant
Syd Hamidreza Hosseini
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Syd Hamidreza Hosseini is a Montréal-based theatre practitioner and part-time faculty member in Concordia University’s Theatre Department. Working at the intersection of performance and technology, he is the founder of the CyberShakespeare collective, which has brought performances to audiences in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Iran, Sweden and Canada.
In Montréal, he founded the Hive Theatre collective that presented Destroyed in 2025 and Viraf2.0 in 2026. He has presented his work at festivals including the Edinburgh International Film Festival and MUTEK Forum.
The practical things
- When
- Friday, November 27 to Sunday, November 29, 2026 — show times to be announced
- Where
- EV Building, Concordia University, 1515 Sainte-Catherine Street West, Montréal — room to be announced
- Tickets
- Information about ticket sales will be announced shortly.
- Language
- Persian with French and English translation available.
Ghazal Azizi
Communication Coordinator
Interviews, photos and rehearsal access available on request.