Can words kill?

In April 1994, the Rwandan government orchestrated the massacre of nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. While the weapons were largely simple—machetes, sticks, a few guns—the most powerful weapon was RTLM, a wildly popular radio station that had been preparing the genocide for months before the killing started.

Inside an intimate, glass-walled studio, a radio broadcast unfolds in real time. Through our headsets, RTLM’s daily soundscape of upbeat music, news, and sports blends seamlessly with chilling calls to murder.

Milo Rau’s Hate Radio is an exposé on how horrific language first becomes normal… and then lethal.

CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM

TEXT & DIRECTION: Milo Rau
CAST (live): Sébastien Foucault, Eric Ngangare, Diogène Ntarindwa, Bwanga Pilipili, Sylvain Souklaye
CAST (video): Estelle Marion, Nancy Nkusi, Afazali Dewaele
DRAMATURGY & CONCEPTUAL MANAGEMENT: Jens Dietrich
SET & COSTUME DESIGN: Anton Lukas
VIDEO: Marcel Bächtiger 
SOUND: Jens Baudisch
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Mascha Euchner-Martinez
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT & DRAMATURGY: Milena Kipfmüller
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Yven Augustin

After touring more than 25 countries, this landmark work maDE its U.S. premiere at St Ann’s Warehouse, NEW YORK in February 2026.

the New Yorker’s review “Hate Radio” Chucks the Transcript by Emily Nussbaum