December 3, 2022
It’s such a joy to have Egyptian-American playwright Adam Ashraf ElSayigh here at Stanford with us working on a new play development process. More information is below.
Please join TAPS PhD Candidate Marina Johnson and TAPS PhD student Karishma Bhagani on Sunday December 4th from 4-7pm at Denning House for a reading of Adam Ashraf ElSayigh’s Jamestown/Williamsburg. Jamestown/Williamsburg tells the story of the voyages and traumas of two immigrant women, Diyala and Agnes. The former came to Virginia on a student visa in 2019, and the latter was a mail-order bride to Jamestown in 1619, with an elaborate plan to rule the new world. Diyala is in a green card marriage with her husband Ibrahim, seeking a path to American citizenship. Agnes is married to the Lord of the 1619 Virginia Company, who happens to be entwined in a relationship with a Native American man.
As these two women navigate the treacherous landscapes of new immigrants in the same house, 400 years apart, time breaks down and they find themselves having to encounter each other, their mistakes, and similarities, ultimately discovering a shocking fact about how their lineages connect them. The piece is a love triangle turned love quartet that asks what it means to come to an unwelcoming land, and how has the American zeitgeist evolved to think about immigration differently over the past 400 years?
Followed by the reading, Adam Ashraf El-Sayigh and Karishma Bhagani will lead a workshop entitled "Performing One Another", which will detail how to use simple performance techniques to understand leadership and our community members in a deeper, more meaningful way.
November 13, 2022
I just got back from the MENATMA Convening (the Middle East and North Africa Theatre-Makers Alliance Convening) in Dearborn, Michigan. It was SO nice to
November 6, 2022
At ASTR (the American Society for Theatre Research conference) this past week I workshopped my paper “Palestinian Sperm Smuggling: A Force for Futurity Amidst the Continued Catastrophe of Occupation” in the Global South working group. It is always an honor to get to be with this working group in particular. NOLA was fun, too!
October 28, 2022
Tonight is a show I’ve been excited about for a while—Dr. Samer Al-Saber’s new play Passing in Belgrade. I have so enjoyed getting to be part of this process and in the rehearsal room with Samer and the co-directors Michael Rau and Sahar Assaf.
September 20, 2022
I’m back from 12 weeks in the Middle East. Can’t wait to share my summer adventures with you all soon!
May 31, 2022
Also this month, (as part of my fellowship with the Stanford Haas Center), I directed the Palestinian Youth Monologues, a product of community-based research and applied theatre with 15 Bay Area Palestinian youth ages 8-18 in collaboration with Bay Area Arab American organization ASWAT/Zawaya. The students wrote and performed their own monologues about what it means to be Palestinian-American in the Bay Area, in addition to singing 3la Dalouna and just generally being the BEST.
كمان في مايو مع "مركز ستانفورد هاس" اخرجت "مونولوج الشباب الفلسطيني نتيجة بحث مجتمعي ومسرح تطبيقي مع 15 شاب فلسطيني في منطقة الخليج تتراوح أعمارهم بين 8 و 18 عامًا بالتعاون مع منظمة Bay Area العربية الأمريكية ASWAT / Zawaya. كتب الطلاب وأدّوا مونولوجاتهم الخاصة حول ما يعنيه أن تكون فلسطينيًا أمريكيًا في منطقة الخليج ، بالإضافة إلى غناء على دلعونا و بشكل عام كيف انهم شباب رائعين.
May 15, 2022
After many venue changes, Covid policy changes, and date changes, Stanford’s GRAD REP finally happened. For my part in this project, I directed the first US production of Shakespeare’s Sisters, a play developed by Al-Harah Thearer in Beit Jala. The play was created from interviews with Palestinian women, written by Pietro Floridia, and translated by Mirna Sakhleh.
The women are struck by an idea in Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” — if Shakespeare had a sister, how would the patriarchy have affected her life? Nesma’s dreams and ambitions propel her to create a space inspired by this imagined sister, a space to recharge, regroup and, if necessary, to revolt.
This one is special to me.
Photo credit: Frank Chen
Design: Costume (Cecilia Ergueta), Sound/Projections (Rob Bergenstock), Lighting (Espen Garner & Christian V. Mejia).
January 18th, 2020
Nine days until we start rehearsal for 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche at Beloit College. I’ve spent the past few days putting together a dramaturgy packet for the actors. I love doing research, and this show is really providing interesting rabbit holes down which to fall! On a pretty light note, check out this article about a the first lesbian magazine:“1950s Secret Social Club Printed The First Lesbian Magazine”.
January 11th, 2020
I’m so proud of my students for their work at KC/ACTF (the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival). We had three students competing in the Irene Ryan acting competition, one in ASPIRE (she was a semi-finalist!), and other students who participated in the festival in various ways. I presented a workshop on Moment Work, which was well attended and lots of fun! Now, to get ready for the Spring 2020 semester to start!
November 25th, 2019
In the Next Room has closed. What a wonderful ride. Take a look at the beautiful work of the designers!
Photo Credit: Eric Moslow
Photo Credit: Shelbi Wilkin
October 14th, 2019
Twice, Thrice, Frice is up and I’m in rehearsal for In the Next Room (or, The Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl with my Beloit College students. The piece has a lot of moving parts (like the intimacy, a moment of stage combat, and an immense amount of changing onstage) and the writing is just gorgeous. We are loving the challenge!
September 21st, 2019
Check out this interview I conducted with Patrizia Accera, director of Twice, Thrice, Frice… Patrizia is the Executive Director of the International Voices Project which “champions the work of global playwrights by creating opportunities to experience new and contemporary international plays in urban settings and on stages throughout Chicago.” She is a stellar director and an exciting woman to work with as both an AD and a dramaturg!
September 18th, 2019
Rehearsals for Twice, Thrice, Frice… have been going so well. This is my first foray into the Chicago theatre scene and I couldn’t be doing it with a company that I respect more. I first became aware of Silk Road Rising when I was in grad school and read Jamil Khoury’s Precious Stones. I fell in love with the play and noted that he had also co-founded and was the Artistic Director of Silk Road Rising. After that, I noticed that almost all of the Arab plays I was reading had gotten their start at SRR in one form or another. It’s a beautiful thing to admire a company from afar and then, when you get an opportunity to work with them, you realize they are just as great as you had always thought.
September 14th, 2019
In an educational setting, I tend to have a read thru about one week before rehearsals start, so that the student actors get to hear the play out loud and have time to think through objectives/actions before we start rehearsal. This also inspires students to look through their dramaturgy packet more thoroughly before our first official rehearsal. Today was our first read through for In the Next Room and it was such fun. Sarah Ruhl’s text has so much humor, and it’s really exciting to see the actors already digging deep to explore who these characters are.
September 2nd, 2019
Today I’m holding auditions for In the Next Room at Beloit College. I am thrilled to be finally directing this piece. I teach it in Script Analysis, and every year students exclaim that “THIS is the type of play they want to see on the main stage.” Last year, someone finally submitted it to the Season Selection Committee and…here we are! As an educator, my excitement about a project is amplified when the students are really thrilled about something. I can’t wait to get into the rehearsal room for this one!
August 26th, 2019
Thrilled to announce that I am Dramaturg and Assistant Director for the world premiere production of Egyptian playwright Fouad Teymour’s Twice, Thrice, Frice… at Silk Road Rising in Chicago. The team is under the direction of Patrizia Accera and, if our production meetings are any indication, this is going to be one gorgeous production. Check out the Broadway World article below!
July 19th, 2019
Today is the opening of my first self-produced show, David Ives’ All in the Timing, presented in the Neese Theatre in Beloit, WI. So proud of the five female actors who bring life and comedy to each minute of these five plays!
MAy 3rd,2019
Today (May 3rd), May 6th, and May 8th, you can come see the final scenes presented by my Fundamentals of Acting class. They are 20 students with SO much heart.
Tomorrow (May 4th) my Directing 1 students present their final scenes. I love getting to see how much their work has grown throughout the course of the semester. We had the special joy of collaborating with the stage management class for this showing (and the costume design class earlier this semester).
MARCH 20th, 2019
Tonight I’m giving a talk about theatre in Egypt. If you’re in Wisconsin, come check it out!
FEBRUARY 27th, 2019
The Festival of One Acts opens tomorrow! The student written and directed pieces are really interesting. Here are the summaries:
In Bi the Way, I’m Catholic by Julia Dirkes-Jacks, Joan searches for a man to marry before the church she grew up in is torn down, but the people she winds up in bed with never seem to be men.
In we set ourselves on fire by Sydney Remoroza Mercado, Ane follows their friends, Bim and Cyan, as they realize their newfound powers to create miracles while intoxicated. A play on the recognition of power.
In The Impossibelle by Amanda Gaal, Jack is determined to keep her life and loved ones together no matter the price she has to pay, in this drama of worried girls, sucky boys, friendly(?) ghosts, and commando pixies.
January 25th, 2019
Three of my theatre students have written and are directing their one One Acts! While I would love to be directing this semester, I’m excited to get to mentor them in this project! I got my start as a directing in Student Directed One Acts at Penn State, so to be able to give students this opportunity is especially important to me.
January 10th, 2019
Egypt was amazing! I’m so thankful for the time that I got to spend there. The Nile has my heart, that’s for sure.
December 10, 2018
Suddenly we’re in the last week of classes and I’m working with students on their audition pieces for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, prepping finals, and getting ready for a trip to Egypt. This year we have 11 students going to KCACTF. I’m excited for them and the work they’ve been doing! I’m also excited to spend three weeks in Egypt: one in Alexandria and two in Cairo!
november 16, 2018
Men on Boats is in it’s second weekend of performances, but I’m in San Diego for the ASTR La Jolla Forum. While I’m missing their performances (see pictures below!), I’m also excited to be here with the panel of Arab Theatre Scholars discussing my paper called “Oslo: Taking Up Space on Broadway” and furthering our conversations about the other papers as well. This has been an amazing working group to be part of, and I look forward to our next exploration together.
November 6, 2018
Tonight was the second dress rehearsal of Men on Boats. We are ready to perform this movement heavy, fast-paced piece for an audience starting on Thursday! Here is a small teaser video from the show!
https://www.facebook.com/250535968325603/posts/1989809817731534/
october 1, 2018
The past two weekends have been full of great visitors. Last weekend Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Jadina Lilien were here. Tiokasin is an artist/activist who spoke to my students about his experience in a boarding school, and that evening he performed with as many as six kinds of Native American flutes while also encouraging students to honor the land that we are on. With Jadina we did a Creative Constellations workship which is “a kind of alternative group dramaturgical 'therapy' in which participants explore families and ancestors in a collaborative way.” This weekend Ada Cheng performed one of her solo pieces and led a storytelling workshop with some of our Asian and Asian-American students. It has been a really fabulous two weeks for our students!
august 27, 2018
Today was the first day of my second year at Beloit College. This semester I am teaching Fundamentals of Acting and Script Analysis and directing Men on Boats. I’m also advising several special projects, student symposiums, and clubs. Additional things I’m looking forward to are participating in Beloit’s Sustained Dialogue series and the Mellon Decolonizing Pedagogy series. It promises to be an exciting fall semester.
May 24, 2018
We have our first production meeting for Men on Boats tomorrow.
Men on Boats, by Jaclyn Backhaus, bills itself as: Ten explorers. Four boats. One Grand Canyon. Men On Boats is the true(ish) history of an 1869 expedition when a one-armed captain and a crew of loyal volunteers set out to chart the course of the Colorado River. While the characters in Men on Boats were historically cisgender white males, this cast is made up entirely of people who aren’t.
I’m so excited to get to work on collaborating with my colleagues on this amazing script.
April 22, 2018
This past week we brought Riad Ismat to Beloit College to speak and lead several of our classes. In addition to being a great playwright and director, he was also the Minister of Culture in Syria until mid-2012. His visit came after Steven Salaita and Danny Postel's talks late last month. Needless to say, there have been lots of great conversations happening at Beloit dealing with the Middle East lately. Very grateful for that!
March 23, 2018
Today was "Advising Day" at Beloit College. It's a day where students don't have class and each department plans and hosts activities or events for students with the intention of furthering knowledge, skills, and/or experiences that fall outside of the realm of their usual classes. For this Advising Day, Jane Beachy and Alice Gerhke came from Chicago to work with the theatre students. Jane Beachy is the founder and Artistic Director of Chicago's Salonathon--"A home for underground, emerging, and genre-defying art!" Alice has performed in Salonathon before and is a Beloit College alum. It was great to have them both with us. The students (and a few of us faculty, too) created work and then performed it at C-Haus that evening around the theme "give and take". It was a great success and the students have talked about continuing to do Salonathon-esque work here at Beloit.
March 19
The keynote speaker at MATC was Larissa FastHorse. Her speech was heartfelt, humorous, and poignant, but what I really want to share is the concept of territory acknowledgment, the practice of acknowledging the indigenous people whose land you are on. I’ll post a link below that gives more information (and that can aid you in finding territory acknowledgment information for your area). I’m also including a picture from Artists Rep for reference (shared from her FB page). MATC started the luncheon yesterday with a spoken land acknowledgment and also had a sign up as well by the registration table. I have so much to learn as far as this is concerned, but perhaps you can join me in taking one small step in working against the constant erasure of indigenous folks.
#InsteadOfRedFace
March 15, 2018
This week at the Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC) I'm presenting a paper called "Spinning into Control: Directing Arturo Ui in a World Spiraling out of Order". I'm excited to share my experiences on directing the extremely relevant Arturo Ui in 2018 and, as always, grateful for the MATC community for what promises to be a great conference.
March 14, 2018
We closed [title of show] yesterday. It was a fun collaboration, and a very difficult musical than most I've worked on (from the cast size to the meta-theatricality). The cast and crew made it a joy to work on.
Photo Credit: Ziming (Simon) Wu
February 25, 2018
Starting tech today for [title of show]. Maybe someday I won't wake up with Monkeys and Playbills playing on repeat in my mind. ...Today wasn't that day. Here is a promo video that my assistant director, Julia Dirkes-Jacks, made for the production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XbQh8fNkro
February 6, 2018
On Saturday my colleague John and I got to take our Devising and Directing students to Milwaukee Rep for a tour with Hope (where they got to hear from Amy, Alex, and other wonderful people), a Q&A session with Dylan, Nabra, and Deanie, and then to see Animal Farm (directed by May Adrales). They had an AMAZING time. If you know me, you know I love the Rep and the artistry that happens in every part of the building, so it was especially exciting to get to see my students experience that, too!
January 15, 2018
I had a great few days with my students at KCACTF in Indianapolis. One of my favorite things about them is how passionately they discussed the work we saw. They’re the best. Several of them competed in the Irene Ryans, others were in the devising workshop or in ten-minute plays. Another student presented her dramaturgy for The Visit. This was my first KCACTF as faculty, and it was exciting to be experiencing the festival from a different perspective. I presented a workshop called "Intro to Viewpoints" which was a lot of fun. All in all, a great trip!
January 9, 2018
Visiting Assistant Professor Achievement Unlocked: Just made it to Indianapolis with 12 college students for 5 nights for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). I had a great time at this festival as an undergrad...excited to see what attending as a professor is like!
December 11, 2017
A conversation I had today with a student:
Student: We've never met, but I work in the library. It's my job to sort the incoming interlibrary loans.
Me: Oy, I'm sorry. I'm sure I create a lot of extra work for you with all the books I've been requesting.
Student: It's fine it's just that...everything you read sounds so interesting. What are you planning?
Me: Oh, well...an Arab theatre class, among other things
Student: Can I have the reading list? Can I just have a list of everything you like to read? You have great taste!
...I'm not sure about many things in life, but I feel confident in my reading choices right now! Excited to continue planning my Arab Theatre & Culture class.
november 28, 2017
Closed this show a little more than a week ago now. What a ride. Our cast was all-female/nonbinary identifying. This show had placards, projections (of tweets...because Arturo Ui has a Twitter account, dontcha know), audience members sitting on stage, actors sitting on stage for the duration of the show, a costume rack onstage for the inevitable changes happening right before the audience's very eyes, and actors holding "gobos" in the house. It had vegetable crates (LOTS of vegetable crates) that the actors moved from scene to scene, projections read to the audience in at least 4 languages, clowns, a bodyguard who ripped off their shirt to reveal a corset (and sing Don't Fence Me In), actors making sound effects, and Lorde/TSwift/Imagine Dragons/other modern music as the auditory landscape of transitions. Sometimes the actors would stop mid-scene to poll the audience as to whose side they were on. There was modern clothing for the ensemble of 10 actors (who played 35 roles), "period" clothing for the five actors who stayed as themselves the whole time, five different types of dramaturgy taped to various audience chairs, actors talking about Brecht in the house with the audience as a pre-show event before the show, and so much more.
Photo Credit: Edward Otto
November 10, 2017
We opened this great American gangster show last night. Stay tuned for more pictures from the The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
#WhatWouldBrechtDo
Photo Credit: Edward Otto
NOVEMBER 2, 2017
Jim Guy came to visit yesterday. Jim is the Properties Director at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and is well known for being the most amazing props master/designer as well as giving an extremely informative 6-hour Firearms Safety for the Stage workshop. I’m in awe of Jim and the work he does, and I knew my students would be, too! We’re lucky to be so close to Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago, and even luckier that Jim took time out of his busy back-to-back tech schedule to come see us!
August 28, 2017
Today I begin my next adventure, Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College. This semester I’ll teach Script Analysis, Fundamentals of Acting, and direct Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Beloit College promises to be an exciting new experience for this two-time state-school gal! Cheers to promising new adventures!
July 20, 2017
Annie opens tonight! Check out Hard Knock Life here! I'm grateful to have been (the incredible) Kathy Pingel's Associate Director for this production at CMT Bartlesville (in Oklahoma).
https://www.facebook.com/CMTBartlesville/videos/1481019598611201/
June 16, 2017
The opera Speed Dating Tonight’s opening night was rained out last evening, so tonight we actually open at the historic Brucemore!
June 08, 2017
Check out my interview with Iowa’s Jazz Radio Station, KCCK 88.3 for Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre's Speed Dating Tonight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y16oDo4BgHo&feature=youtu.be