See the New York premiere of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s play ≈ [Almost Equal To], translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles, directed by Kwasi Osei and performed by the Scandinavian American Theater Company.

Presented with support from from the Swedish Consulate of New York and Colombine. Advance reservation recommended; register at the link above.

How much do you earn? Who do you serve? In Almost Equal To we encounter a number of people who are colliding with the system of economics surrounding them. Martina dreams about growing her way out of the contemporary economic system; Mani wants to crush it. Andrei is looking for a job; Freja is seeking revenge. They invest money in postage and pine nuts, fake bubbles and perfumes, strollers and utopias. Everyone seems consumed by numbers. How are we, our eyes, our words, our bodies affected by the economic system that surrounds us?

 ≈ [Almost Equal To] is a funny and brutal play that tries (and fails?) to give the audience a maximized entertainment value for every dollar invested. It premiered October 23, 2014 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in direction by Farnaz Arbabi and performed until spring 2016. Since then it has been translated and performed in Iceland, Germany (multiple versions), Norway (two versions), France, Denmark and the U.S.

Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of five novels and six plays. His first novel, Ett öga rött, received the Borås Tidning Award for Best Literary Debut Novel. Montecore won the prestigious P.O. Enquist Literary Prize and Swedish Radio’s Award for Best Novel. It was also nominated for the August Prize, Sweden’s highest literary honor, which Khemiri won in 2015 for Allt jag inte minns.

His work has been translated into more than 25 languages, and his plays have been performed by over 100 international theater companies worldwide. He received the Obie Award for Invasion!, his first play. In 2019, a three-part adaptation of Allt jag inte minns aired on SVT. His latest novel, The Family Clause, won the 2021 Prix Médicis étranger and was a finalist for a National Book Award. He was a 2021-2022 Fellow at the Cullman Center in New York.

Scandinavian American Theater Company (SATC), the first-ever Scandinavian-American theater company in New York, was founded in 2009 by a group of New York-based Scandinavian theater professionals with the wish to introduce a new generation of Scandinavian playwrights to an American audience.

SATC’s mission is to present high-quality, cutting-edge productions of contemporary Scandinavian plays and fresh interpretations of the Scandinavian classics, as well as to foster the Scandinavian-American performing arts community in New York.