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NEWS

Yasmina's Necklace Image

September 5 – 22, 2019

New Jersey Premiere Production 

YASMINA'S NECKLACE by Rohina Malik

Premiere Stages, 1000 Morris Avenue  |  Union, NJ     MORE INFO         TICKETS

ABOUT: Meet Abdul Samee: his father is Iraqi, his mother is Puerto Rican - but if you ask him, he'll say he's Italian. Longing to shed his cultural identity, he changes his name to Sam, marries an American and does everything in his power to turn away from his heritage. But when Sam meets Yasmina, a beautiful woman from his father's homeland, he begins to learn that a tree without roots cannot stand for long.

Featuring Layan Elwazani, Robert Manning, Jr., Eliud Kauffman, Soccorro Santiago, Cesar Rosada, Peter Romano, Haythem Noor

Scenic Design David Barber, Costume Design Dina El-Aziz, Lighting Design Cha See, Sound Design Fan Zhang

Sundance Institute Logo

July, 2019

Workshop

ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM by Clarence Coo

Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, UT   MORE INFO

ABOUT: Two young men, an American backpacker and a Syrian refugee, meet in a gay club in Amsterdam and spend the next day together knowing their paths will never cross again. As they visit the former homes of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank, they discover the meaning of love, art, and escape in the context of Europe’s current migrant crisis.

Featuring Abubakr Ali, Eston Fung, Keren Lugo, Russell G. Jones

OCT logo color-02_Cropped.jpg

April 20, 2019

Staged Reading 

ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM by Clarence Coo

Oregon Contemporary Theatre, 194 W. Broadway  |  Eugene, OR     MORE INFO

ABOUT: Two young men, an American backpacker and a Syrian refugee, meet in a gay club in Amsterdam and spend the next day together knowing their paths will never cross again. As they visit the former homes of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank, they discover the meaning of love, art, and escape in the context of Europe’s current migrant crisis.

Featuring Chris Arreola, Cole Haenggi, Jasper Howard, Brianna Soumokil, Jonathan Thompson

Pioneer Theatre Company Logo

January 25 & 26, 2019

Staged Reading

THE FIFTH DOMAIN by Victor Lesniewski

Pioneer Theatre Company, 410 Campus Center Drive | Salt Lake City, UT   MORE INFO

ABOUT: Recently removed from his position at the National Security Agency, cyber security expert Troy is approached about a new project requiring his special skills, but his eagerness to take on the work blinds him to the repercussions in the world of cyber war. A thriller that asks basic questions about patriotism, espionage, and accountability in the digital age.

Featuring Austin Archer, Laura Hall, Bijan Hosseini, Jessica Naimy

Refuge*Malja Poster

October 30 – November 18, 2018

 

World Premiere Production 

REFUGE*MALJA*ملجأ by Bess Welden

Portland Stage, 25A Forest Ave  |  Portland, ME      MORE INFO     PHOTOS

ABOUT: When a Jewish-American war photographer feels compelled to assist a young refugee who steps in front her camera,  she calls an old friend to translate but hesitates to reveal why she is so drawn to the boy. This poetic, decade-spanning drama explores how we each define and find our own malja (refuge). 

Scenic Design Anita Stewart, Costume Design Anna Grywalski, Lighting Design Scott Bolman, 

Sound Design Mark Van Hare

Featuring Shauna Bloom, Brooke Parks, Amro Salama, Anwer Ali, Mohammad Adam, Hussein Al-Mshakheel

Geva Theatre Logo

November 11, 2018

Staged Reading
ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM by Clarence Coo

Geva Theatre Center, 75 Woodbury Blvd  |  Rochester, NY     MORE INFO

ABOUT: Two young men, an American backpacker and a Syrian refugee, meet in a gay club in Amsterdam and spend the next day together knowing their paths will never cross again. As they visit the former homes of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank, they discover the meaning of love, art, and escape in the context of Europe’s current migrant crisis.

Featuring Owais Ahmed,  Eston Fung, Babak Tafti, Rocky Vega, Charles E. Wallace

Middle Eastern Mixfest Logo

August 14, 2018

Staged Reading

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING by Kareem Fahmy, based on the novel by Alaa Al Aswany
Atlantic Theatre Company Stage 2: 330 W. 16TH ST.   |   New York, NY    MORE INFO 

ABOUT: Based on the novel that became an international sensation, The Yacoubian Building is set in Cairo, chronicling the lives of Egyptians of different religions, sexual orientations, and class backgrounds. The titular apartment block becomes a microcosm of an Egypt infested with corruption, discrimination, and despair. A love letter to the Middle East, the play conjures an Egypt before the Arab Spring, still on the brink of change, deeply divided but full of hope.

Director Melissa Crespo

Featuring Jacqueline Antaramian, May Calamawy, James Cusati-Moyer, Ashkon Davaran, Ahmad Maksoud, Louis Sallan, Zenzi Williams, Eliud Kauffman, Justin Walker-White, Antoinette LaVecchia, Haythem Noor, Luis Moreno, Andrew Guilarte

Middle Eastern Mixfest Logo

August 9, 2018

 

Staged Reading

SALIM SALIM by Stav Palti-Negev

Atlantic Theatre Company Stage 2: 330 W. 16TH ST.   |   New York, NY     MORE INFO 

 

ABOUT: When Palestinian Salim Tarek is released from an Israeli prison, the Israeli authorities mistakenly bring him to the Gaza border crossing while his family awaits his return on the other side of the country, in the West Bank. Salim knows that if he enters Gaza, he might never see them again. Stranded on the border, Salim has to find a solution before the Israeli soldiers make a choice for him.

Featuring Yuval Boim, Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, Amel Khalil, O’mer Koren, Peter Romano, Louis Sallan, Babak Tafti

New Museum Logo

October, 2015 - January 2016

Research Project
X-ID REP
The New Museum: 235 Bowery   |   New York, NY     MORE INFO

ABOUT: X-ID REP is an open studio research project organized in conjunction with the New Museum’s Fall 2015 R&D Season: PERSONA. Working within a pop-up repertory theater model, X-ID REP is a research-driven enterprise designed to examine the shifting ethical boundaries surrounding intercultural cross-play on contemporary American stages. The project brings together a group of directors and playwrights recognized for their diverse approaches to staging across various identifications of class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and ability, among others, to collaborate with a resident company of actors chosen by them for this project. Operating from various positions of agency and privilege, the members of X-ID REP will collectively examine the constructs of staging intercultural cross-identifications while directing our attention to the social conditions from which these constructs emerge and persist, perniciously or otherwise.

 

Participating Artists Lileana Blain-Cruz: Director, Kirk Wood Bromley: Playwright, Jackie Sibblies Drury: Playwright, Kareem Fahmy: Director, MJ Kaufman: Playwright, JJ Lind: Director, Aya Ogawa: Playwright, Niegel Smith: Director

This Time Poster

May 7-21, 2016
World Premiere Production | New York Times Critic's Pick

THIS TIME by Sevan K. Greene
The Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker St   |   New York, NY     MORE INFO     PHOTOS

ABOUTIn the sultry heat of 1960s Cairo, a clandestine love affair blooms between a married Egyptian woman and a Canadian professor ten years her junior. In a wintry Toronto house in the 1990s, an aging mother’s memories encroach on her recently divorced daughter’s attempts to restart her life. The past closes in, threatening to overwhelm the present. But what is real and what is illusion? Inspired by the memoirs of a Muslim woman who fought for her independence at a turning point in Egypt’s modern history, This Time is a lush new play about regret, romance, and familial responsibility.

 

Scenic Design David Esler, Costume Design Sarafina Bush, Lighting Design Scott Bolman 

Sound Design Mark Van Hare, Props Design Jess Adams

Featuring Delphi Harrington, Rendah Heywood, Ahmad Maksoud, Seth Moore, Salma Shaw

Couriers and Contrabands Poster

September 5-26, 2015
World Premiere Production

COURIERS AND CONTRABANDS by Victor Lesniewski 
TBG Theatre   |   New York, NY     MORE INFO     PHOTOS

 

ABOUT: 1864. Petersburg, Virginia. As the Civil War rages on, Confederate operatives in control of a courier line work to gather information on the Union's efforts. Little do they know that they themselves are being watched by a contraband masquerading as a slave who acts in the interest of the North. Couriers and Contrabands explores the War from the point of view of those people who had the most impact on its outcome while being the least known: the spies.

 

Scenic Design David Esler,  Costume Design Sarafina Bush,  Lighting Design Nicholas Houfek, Sound Design & Original Music Mark Van Hare

 

Featuring Jeremy Beck, Helen Cespedes, Luke Forbes, Heather Hollingsworth, Krystel Lucas, Eric T. Miller, Michael Schantz

Rendah Heywood in This Time

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