Golden Thread offered the dialog NO SUMMARY: Critiquing the Critics: The Reception of MENA Productions livestreaming on the worldwide, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV community on Friday 11 November 2022 at 11 a.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 1 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 2 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
Golden Thread invitations Sarah Fahmy, a scholar and devising artist to reasonable a dialog on the reception of Middle Eastern North African (MENA) productions within the United States immediately with Kareem Fahmy, a theatre director, playwright, and screenwriter whose work is produced at nationally acclaimed theatre firms this yr, and Malek Najjar, a director, playwright, and scholar of Arab American and Middle Eastern American theatre and affiliate professor of theatre arts on the University of Oregon. When Middle Eastern North African tales are continually subjected to the white gaze and are carried out in entrance of a predominantly white Western viewers, how do MENA inventive groups grapple with an genuine illustration of their artistry, languages, and cultures?
This dialog is produced and hosted by Golden Thread Productions in collaboration with the MENATMA convening going down on the Arab American National Museum, 10-12 November 2022.
Sarah Fahmy (moderator) is a decolonial scholartist, who works on the intersection of efficiency and identification politics, Arab and North African theatre, and eco-feminism. She is a co-founder and chair of the Middle Eastern theatre focus group on the Association of Theatre in Higher Education and the co-chair of the MENATMA programming subcommittee. A Ph.D. candidate in theatre and efficiency research and a member of the Child Language Learning Lab on the University of Colorado Boulder, Sarah’s dissertation presents a foundational theoretical praxis for supporting younger Egyptian ladies authors and embodying their decolonial feminist identities. Sarah has devised multidisciplinary, site-specific items and facilitated utilized efficiency and playback residencies with tons of of members internationally, starting from inventive local weather communication with scientists to co-created workshops with youth for the UN Commission on the Status of Women and the Egyptian authorities. Sarah has spearheaded university-wide anti-racist restructuring because the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Government, the theatre lead teacher on the Center for Teaching and Learning, and the co-artistic producer of the New Play Festival. She additionally created the primary college library database devoted to MENA ladies playwrights. Her publications seem in a variety of journals and books starting fromTheatre Topics to PloS One.
Malek Najjar (Panelist) is an affiliate professor of theatre arts on the University of Oregon. He is a director, playwright, and scholar of Arab American and Middle Eastern American theatre. His printed works embrace Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures and Artists and Arab American Drama, Film and Performance: A Critical Study: 1908 to the Present. He has edited 4 Arab American performs: Works by Leila Buck, Jamil Khoury, Yussef El Guindi, Lameece Issaq, and Jacob Kader; The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi; and Heather Raffo’s Iraq Plays: The Things That Can’t Be Said. He has co-edited The Vagrant Trilogy: Three Plays by Mona Mansour (with Hala Baki) and Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (with Jamil Khoury and Corey Pond). He has directed productions with Silk Road Rising, Golden Thread Productions, and New Arab American Theatre Works. Malek is an alumnus of the RAWI Screenwriters Lab/the Royal Film Commission Jordan, Directors Lab at Lincoln Center Theater, and Directors Lab West. He was awarded the University of California Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship, the Ernest G. Moll Faculty Research Fellowship in Literary Studies, the Fund for Faculty Excellence Award, and certificates of benefit for guiding from the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival.
Kareem Fahmy (Panelist) is a Canadian-born, New York City-based director and playwright of Egyptian descent. He was named a 2020 TCG Rising Leader of Color. As a playwright, Kareem obtained the 2022 Woodward/Newman Playwriting Award, a NYSCA/NYFA Playwriting Fellowship, the Janet Sloane Literature Residency at Yaddo, and is a two-time finalist for the National Showcase of New Plays. Commissions: Artists Repertory Theatre, Colt Coeur, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan. His performs embrace Dodi & Diana (Colt Coeur, O’Neill NPC Finalist), American Fast (Rolling World Premiere at Artists Repertory Theatre, City Theatre, InterAct Theatre), A Distinct Society (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Pioneer Theatre, Writers Theatre), The Triumphant (Target Margin Theatre), Pareidolia, and an adaptation of the acclaimed novel The Yacoubian Building. Kareem is co-founder and chair of the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab. He has directed and developed work at theatres nationwide, together with Pioneer Theatre, Geva Theatre, Writers Theatre, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Portland Stage, Crossroads Theatre, Premiere Stages, MCC, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The New Group, New Dramatists, Playwrights Center, The Civilians, Silk Road Rising, San Diego Rep, and Berkeley Rep. Fellowships/Residencies: Sundance Theatre Lab, The Old Globe (Classical Directing Fellow), Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Phil Killian Directing Fellow), The O’Neill (National Directors Fellow), Second Stage (Van Lier Directing Fellow), Soho Rep (Writer/Director Lab), Lincoln Center (Directors Lab), New York Theatre Workshop (Directing Fellow/Usual Suspect). MFA in Theatre Directing: Columbia University. www.kareemfahmy.com