Raoul Bhaneja once asked actor Michael Douglas why he decided to be a producer.

“So I could make my own roles,” the actor replied.

Bhaneja took that advice to heart. With Disgraced, Bhaneja, along with Mirvish Productions, has brought the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Ayad Akhtar about race relations to Toronto. And he’s saved one of the best and most controversial roles in North American theatre this year for himself.

Bhaneja plays Amir Kapoor, a Pakistani-American lawyer who distances himself from his roots while at the same time trying to ascend the corporate ladder. His wife Emily (played by Bhaneja’s actual wife Birgitte Solem) is an artist.

The couple hosts a dinner party where things get completely out of control when talk turns to Islamophobia, politics and religion. The play is topical, given the rise of presidential candidate Donald Trump and his comments about preventing Muslims from entering the United States. It also happens to be the most produced play in the U.S. this year. It plays until April 17 at the Panasonic Theatre.

“What drew us to the play is that even though it’s set in New York, and definitely about America, it also translates well for Canadians,” says the U.K. born Bhaneja, who has an Irish mother and South Asian father. “It centres around the idea that even though we have friends from so many backgrounds what the play explores is how deep are your tribal roots.”

Bhaneja is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada whom audiences will recognize from his role as a series regular in the television show Train 48, as well as in movies such as The Sentinel (with Douglas) and in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat. He also tours with his band Raoul and The Big Time.

Bhaneja says getting the play to Toronto took several years. The actor, who owns a production company in Toronto with Solem, met with playwright Akhtar in 2012 and talked about doing a production for Canada.

“We went to see the play, and it was before it had won the Pulitzer or been nominated for a Tony award. He said I’ll meet you in the bar afterward. He said you seem like nice people, you came all the way from Canada to see the play, I’ll help you anyway you can,” said Bhaneja. “And it was almost as simple as that — although it took a while to get here.”

Bringing a play about race relations to Toronto, perhaps the most diverse city in the world, may seem at first like preaching to the choir. Canadians, after all, like to think we live in a post-racial world where we have currency in their knowledge of the different types of ramen.

But we have no right to be smug. There are continuing issues of race, including the carding of black men in the city by police and violence against aboriginal women.

“It’s about some complicated issues and you don’t get all the answers,” Bhaneja says.

“But it’s also not one of those plays where you go oh my god it’s about an issue, and the playwright is going to tell me how ignorant I am. It’s not that. I think it tries to take so many different sides of the argument you leave the theatre trying to figure out which side you’re on. And there are so many perspectives. You have a female African American, a male South Asian, an American Jew, and all these different backgrounds melding and colliding.”

While the play has had generally stellar reviews — The New York Times called it “Terrific, turbulent with fresh currents of dramatic electricity,” some have said the play reinforces rather than undercuts Muslim stereotypes.

Bhaneja sometimes he feels says author Akhtar is under unfair scrutiny as one of the first prominent Muslim playwrights.

“He carries a larger burden.

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“If he was an Irish playwright criticizing Irish society it wouldn’t quite have the same weight. It’s a contentious position if you’re a playwright that is supposed to represent Muslims,” says Bhaneja.

“It’s certainly not an easy play. But what we do need are more voices and different points of view. Here you have a chance for a large mass of people to hear the voice of a writer that they’re not used to hearing.”