Plays

“Captures, with economy, humour, and heart, the intense rollercoaster ride of working in a refugee placement agency during a housing crisis.”

— Voaden Prize in Playwriting

“A startling window into the chaos of settling refugees, juggling bureaucracy, and managing the cultural differences of multiple, sizeable families struggling to communicate. A humorous, compassionate look at the staff engaged.”

 — Ottawa Little Theatre

“Think Kim’s Convenience but set in an Ismaili Muslim family. This play feels ripe for a TV adaptation. Zahida Rahemtulla’s The Wrong Bashir has the hallmarks of a classic sitcom, including the zaniest of premises that many a showrunner would kill for. Rahemtulla's dialogue is brisk, punchy, and a gift to any comic actor.”

             — The Toronto Star

“Rahemtulla’s writing gives you family, compassion, love, and so many laughs that you’ll walk out smiling at the insanity of it all, while also feeling the love that family brings to one another. Hilariously and wickedly fast-paced and original, The Wrong Bashir gets it perfectly and lovingly right.”

                — Front Mezz Junkies

“The Wrong Bashir is a very entertaining offering with a lot of laughs. The play has certainly found an audience — a sold out run in Vancouver, and an extended run in Toronto — so the comparison to the very popular Kim’s Convenience (2011) by Ins Choi is not far off. Playwright Rahemtulla is clearly a talent to watch and we hope to see more of the Canadian Ismaili community in the future.”

             — Ludwig Van Reviews 

“The Wrong Bashir paints a loving, humorous picture of the Ismaili community. Rahemtulla, a young B.C. playwright, uses her debut play partly to paint a lovingly humorous picture of Canada’s Ismaili community and partly to pay tribute to its founders, the refugees who fled from Uganda in the early 1970s.”

              — The Globe and Mail

“The theatre shook at times with gales of laughter as the audience recognized either culturally specific references, or ones familiar to all families.”

                          — MGT Stage

“This witty and nuanced script is truly a joy from start to finish. Yet couched in that comedy are very real conversations about life, philosophy, generational struggles, and the hard truth about what it’s like to be forced out of one’s home country.”

                    — A View from the Box

"a wonderful dynamic of the spoken and unspoken within families"

  — Hart House Playwriting Award