Livestreaming on this web page on Wednesday 7 June at 11 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 1 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 2 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
In this episode of No Summary, we’re thrilled to deliver collectively a panel of MENA playwrights who’re writing highly effective tales for U.S. audiences and utilizing their platforms to make clear the experiences of underrepresented communities. Join us as we delve into the artistic technique of playwriting, the challenges and alternatives of bringing numerous tales to the stage, and the influence that these tales can have on audiences. Catherine Coray will reasonable the panel of friends together with playwrights Yussef El Guindi, Denmo Ibrahim, and Hadi Tabbal. The playwrights will share their experiences, focus on the importance of storytelling in MENA cultures, and mirror on the methods during which their work has contributed to the broader discourse on race, energy, and illustration within the U.S.
The panel can be joined by a MENA American Theater class at California Polytechnic State University, designed by professor Hala Baki to think about how MENA theater can contribute to a extra inclusive American tradition, and a Plays and Styles drama class on the University of Washington taught by Mona Merhi who centered the course on matters associated to race, ethnicity, and id illustration by analyzing the works of playwrights from the MENA area alongside fashionable and up to date western texts.
Panelists
Catherine Coray (MODERATOR) has taught on the NYU Tisch School of the Arts since 1991, and has taught and collaborated with artists in Austria, Belarus, Chile, Cuba, Egypt and Lebanon. As an actor, she labored regionally and off-Broadway with administrators similar to Anne Bogart and Andre Gregory. She was the curator of the hotINK Festival at Tisch School of Arts and at The Lark, and Director of The Lark Middle East-US Playwright Exchange; she curated and co-produced Arab Voices: right here/there/then/now (Abu Dhabi, 2016), Arab Voices: Stories of Palestine (Beirut, 2018), and Arab Voices: Three New Dramatic Texts from Beirut and Berlin, on the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute in NYC (2019.) Catherine is presently a Producing Affiliate with the Noor Theatre, and serves on the advisory boards of a number of establishments, together with The Georgetown Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics Think Tank, Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, and the Artistic Advisory Council of Playwrights Horizons.
Yussef El Guindi: Born in Egypt, raised in London and now based mostly in Seattle, Yussef El Guindi’s work often examines the collision of ethnicities, cultures and politics that face Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans. Productions embody Hotter Than Egypt at Marin Theatre Company, ACT in Seattle, and on the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; People of the Book at ACT in Seattle, The Talented Ones at ART in Portland, and Threesome at Portland Center Stage. Bloomsbury/ Methuen Drama just lately revealed The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi. He is the recipient of many honors, together with the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Playwriting Award, L.A. Weekly’s Excellence in Playwriting Award, and the Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award.
Hadi Tabbal is a New York City-based author and actor. Hadi was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. His performs embody The Remnants (Berkeley Rep’s GroundFloor program), Icarus in Berytus (Playwrights Realm semi-finalist), and Christina Et Maria Ad Leones (Artists Advancing Cultural Change Commission/Noor Theater & Pop Culture Collab). As actor, Off-Broadway: The Vagrant Trilogy (Public Theater), English (Atlantic Theater -Obie Award, Lucille Lortel Nomination). New York and regional credit embody: Buggy Baby (APAC), The Hour of Feeling (Humana Festival). Film: Rosa (HBO), Circumstance (Sundance Audience Award). Hadi performed Amir Al-Raisani on NBC’s The Brave. Other TV credit embody: Bull (CBS), Law & Order SVU (NBC), FBI (CBS), The Blacklist (NBC). MFA in Acting (The New School for Drama). Past creative affiliate for The Sundance Theater Institute. Fulbright Grant recipient from Lebanon.
Denmo Ibrahim is an American playwright and actor of Egyptian descent. Her performs embody BABA (AlterTheatre, Amphibian Stage), Arab Spring (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Finalist: Eugene O’Neill Festival 2023), Brilliant Mind (Marin Theatre Company), The Day Naguib Mahfouz Was Stabbed In The Neck And Almost Died a.okay.a. The Selkie Play (Finalist: Sundance and NNPN’s Showcase of New Plays), and Ecstasy / A Waterfable (Golden Thread). Her audio-immersive ebook, Zaynab’s Night of Destiny (Fons Vitae, Commonwealth Theatre Center) engaged hundreds of elementary and center college college students in Louisville, KY. Regional performing credit embody Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, The Old Globe, Seattle Rep, Marin Theatre Company, and Cal Shakes. A Rainin Fellow nominee, Denmo has obtained a number of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Wallace Gerbode Foundation, Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), the Doris Duke Foundation, and Theatre Bay Area. Denmo is a proud resident artist of Golden Thread, and steering committee member of MENA Theatre Makers Alliance. She holds an MFA in Lecoq-based Actor Created Physical Theater from Naropa University and a BFA in Acting from Boston University. Currently, Denmo is engaged on a ten-part audio drama for Audible. denmoibrahim.com
Halal Baki (she/her) is a Lecturer within the Theatre and Dance Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She holds a PhD in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies with an Interdisciplinary Emphasis in Global Studies from UC Santa Barbara in addition to an MA in Theater from CSU Northridge. Her analysis explores how Arab American theater’s relations to situations of manufacturing affect its help constructions and sustainability. Her scholarship weaves theories of the general public sphere, diaspora, social programs / establishments, and efficiency economies. She has introduced her work at IFTR, ASTR, and ATHE. She has revealed in Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, and Asian Theatre Journal. She has edited the anthology The Vagrant Trilogy: Three Plays by Mona Mansour (Bloomsbury, 2022) and authored a chapter within the forthcoming quantity Arabs, Politics, and Performance (Routledge). She can be a director and dramaturg whose current credit embody Yussef El Guindi’s Wife of Headless Man Investigates Her Own Disappearance (2023), Mona Mansour’s unseen (2022), the unique ensemble play Writer’s Block (2021), and Kareem Fahmy’s American Fast (2021).
Mona Merhi (She/Her) is a doctoral instructing affiliate on the University of Washington. She is a author, researcher, TV producer, theatremaker, and cultural supervisor. Being a theatre critic in lots of native and regional newspapers within the Arab world, Mona revealed articles about diversified efficiency landscapes. She was concerned in analysis tasks referring to cultural insurance policies. She has introduced her work on the UCLA Center for Performance Studies, Maryland University’s Revels and Rebels Virtual Symposium, and the Association for Theatre and Higher Education (ATHE). Mona obtained the Simpson Center for the Humanities Cluster help grant and the Michael Quinn Writing Prize for 2021.