 I will take one more moment to thank not only Neil for the vision and behind this mixed best and all the mixed best that Alexis Peter does, but also to thank Abby Katz and David and Menti Sabal. Just a pleasure to be part of this and y'all have been working really hard together and I'm deeply, deeply grateful for this moment of bringing all these artists of Middle Eastern art together for the festival. And I do want to start, I will introduce everybody in a moment, and their Biosyria program, so we will read more about that for you. But I would really like to start by reintroducing the curators of this festival and talk a little bit with them about how it came about meeting with this particular group of writers and the writers who are absent tonight, I'll tell you more about them in a bit, and the process that led to this amazing 10 days of readings. So again, Heather Rappo and Mona Mansour, thank you so much for doing this, it's such a great lineup. Can you talk a little bit about the process by which you investigated and how did people pour material and metal material? Tell us about that. Well, for sure you can't have it all, right? So we knew that going in, and of course we really focus on diversity regionally, with majority communities and minority communities within the region, male and female voices. Even so far as wanting American voices with Middle Eastern heritage and voices from the Middle East in translation or native speakers writing. So trying to pick a little of all those categories was kind of the breadth of what we wanted. And I would say the other big thing we focused in on, it didn't start out this way, but we honed in on saying, okay, if we're having five main stage, I mean five readings, what should the focus of those be to not only you here as an audience, but to be American theater as an audience. And for me it paid down to we want these shows on our main stages and we think they're ready and won't you give them leads, right? So if we've seen this before, why would somebody do this? What's at stake if they didn't? Can't we show that you ought to? And then I think the other thing was focusing, for me anyways, focusing in on what I think is a national conversation that needs to be had. And so these are all little aspects of that or writers that represent that, whether they're writing about anything particular at all. But the five plays we chose for full readings were things that we felt strongly worth both in dialogue with each other and would work in dialogue with America, right? And that's the breath of it. I don't just mean hot-button political issues, I don't just mean, you know, having Syrian play because Syria is a thing in crisis, but it was very much about, you know, we're thinking this is what's on the zeitgeist of what's going on both in New York and in the theater and across America and in communities that might not have access to anything like this. So that's what we thought this would be on the platform tomorrow. That was so good. I had to go. I don't have much more to say. I think what was very exciting to me was, you know, within our community, which is burgeoning, right? And so like there's plenty of people I don't know, right? And I'll continue to find out about. But that stylistically, there's so much happening, you know, so that like one of us writes so differently than another person. I kind of love that. And I think that guided me a little bit in this, too, that we sort of wanted a mix of styles, theatrical kind of voices. But, yeah, I don't have much more to add. Just that I'm really excited this is happening. I think that there have been movements in New York. So here, there are the Ross and Newer and there have been groups that people have coalesced around and that have fed me personally. And I think it's, you know, it's time, right, that we're here at the Atlantic, right? And one of the big boys here, and then we're sort of saying, this is work that we think you should see, written by people you need to know about and actors that you may not know about, some of them you may know about. But so I'm excited. Wonderful. And the thing I wrote to, another, actually, this morning was just how struck I was by the diversity of the place and not only geographically, but in terms of style, in terms of dramaturgy and sensibilities, really diverse. Just wondering, so. I think what I'll do now is just put down the line and introduce each of these wonderful people to you. So here we have a style called the Negev. Okay? And your name is, yes, Lucy in green and Mayra's black head. And Sanaa's Lucy. Oh, no, I can't. You have to put it before your eyes. I'm sorry. And Kareem, follow me. And Tala Manasa. And you met Luna and Heather. And thank you all so much for being here in conversation with us. I'm so grateful. So what I'm going to do is, because I don't think you have this in your program. Very briefly read words on each of the plays and then pose a couple questions to each of the writers. And these are the full length plays that are going to be read during the festival. When it comes to the one-axe, that would be a surprise. So the first writer, just to my left here, is an amazing thing called Salim Salim. And here's the description. When Palestinian Salim Tard is released from 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 out of order, Salim has to find a solution before he, before the Israeli soldiers, make a choice for him. And, you know, I read the play and one of the things that struck me I mentioned this earlier was how very specific you are about the setting of the play. I'm just going to show this because it's quite amazing. It's actually a, well, here it is. She's actually set the stage up in a particular way and you can't necessarily see this from here, but I wanted to point out just how specific Stavna's been and wanting to tell us about that. So the main thing in place of the border crossing is between Israel and Gaza. And when writing the play, it's very important for me to turn the theater into the crossing. And I wanted the audience to be able to experience some of the student concepts. So the story of Salim was stranded at the crossing, but I'm always very interested in experiential, experimental theater and giving the audience something here. So, when people come into the theater, the first people they meet are the soldiers who lead Salim later or character in the play and they have to go through the crossing with them. So they're pressured by the soldiers to want to know where they came from what their father's name what their mother's name and if it is them, some people are in the same that they have to be there before they can go through. And the soldiers tell the audience if they can go to Gaza or to Israel. And so we invite them into the park and they end up watching the show through one side or the other through the fence. And in between these two fences is Salim with Salim's age. And the idea behind it was to give so I wrote this play in beauty and I was thinking about beauty. And I wanted to give them of the theater of the real experience but I wanted to give them some kind of sense of what Palestinians have to go through every day when they have to go through this cross. It's not the real thing but it's right so you wrote it for a described audience and put no doubt they work with Palestinians in the audience as well and I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the experience that was actually played by some of the women in the response. At the end of 2014 at the Akhul, and Akhul, I wrote this play in Hebrew but he translated it into Arabic and he translated the whole play and we read it so Salim the characters are Salim the soldier the Salim's family and all the scenes that Salim makes the soldiers the soldiers were in Hebrew because Salim the soldier that he had obeyed in his language and all the scenes that he met his family were in Arabic and the team was also the soldiers were played by Jewish actors and the Palestinian characters were played by Palestinian Israeli actors and they were playing for both languages during the show when people had to read and it was kind of exhausting for them some people were complaining it's not easy to really push for but it was also educational it was the idea was to play Jewish Israelis who don't speak Arabic most Jewish Israelis don't speak Arabic and give them this feeling of watching the show and our and be in Arabic and experiencing that absolutely so what about the response to the play interesting so before 2014 was a very charged year during the Gaza war and we were rehearsing the play during the Gaza war so they've been working on this play for the team of Palestinians in June in the room and there are meetings outside which was crazy but actually it got us all very much out there every time we do the same but people were warning me before we opened people were like that's not going to go through people would be angry or have demonstrations outside no so it was people fun to play maybe they went in and they were ready to get to be set and to take the game and I think it's a story about and this man happens to be a Palestinian and we have other negotiations in Israel so it's very relevant to our time but it's also a man that I think everyone anyone can do for this situation and that was the response for most people maybe because people were crazy to be in Germany thank you and we even had like later on we had something a little bit more like we did in Israel and and they came to talk to me afterwards and I think they were really they didn't expect to touch that in that way and for me that's the most important thing and do you feel that the aversion aspect of the of the production and contributing to that I think so so it's interesting to see we were trying to really make different ways like we tried to but we didn't want it to be a comfortable situation and some people got very upset they were fighting for the soldier and she was very strict in the production and they were like I don't want you so you wait but these people were the people who came back at the end of the show thank you you're making this up you're making this up okay let's talk a little bit let's talk a little bit about the well first of all let me tell you a little bit about Hada Javier who is not with us but who has written a play called Scenes from Seventy Years which is on a related topic Scenes from Seventy Years is a selection of interpoint Vindyak's telling the story of ordinary Palestinians that are very human level with Mr. Bisouma it offers snapshots of the routine of life with a shadow of occupation we look into an Israeli household where the rebellious and pro-Helestinian teenager joined a tediously long Jewish and Israeli checkpoint to get swept into an absurd act of civil disobedience of Palestinian civilians in desperate attempt to get worldwide media attention and because Hada couldn't be with us she's a friend of mine so I reached out to her and asked her to send me some remarks that I could share with you that would give you some idea of how the play came to happen I always enjoyed writing but didn't start penning drama until I was at university once I did the story of my career in literature and my writing I attended a seminar at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in the oral histories of Palestine as an Israeli filmmaker and academic presented towards a common archive a project to gather video testimonies from people lived in 1948 and these stories inspired my first play about Palestine, Plant V by the way, on the history of self Palestinian fires for scenes from Seventy Years I wrote a patchwork approach a structuring of which was the work of five years of workshops, readings and revisions I got mixed responses from Palestinians the people who had given me their stories all approved of what I had done with the play but the asked for a friend found it engaging and sometimes affecting and when I was occasionally met with criticism that the play doesn't reflect the full violence of life instead taking snapshots of everyday resilience within an atmosphere designed to ground the Palestinian spirit to dust and failure my response was considered this play is for an audience whose experience of Palestine is largely what they see under news rolled into a myth of balanced recording it's trying to present relatable human stories that will engage and provoke further investigation one night after the show I was approached by a middle-aged English woman who told me that she was going home to educate herself about Palestine the most ratifying response I hope that the first New York area of the play is part of an accessible entertainment for both and I look forward to hearing from them okay so let's move on to the Atlantic it's of the inspiring which was to commission one act play from several warriors and they are here to help as well and so I'd like to I'd like to talk a little bit with each of you about what happened when the Atlantic said okay, write us a little friend and you went okay sure so I'm just starting with Saban why not your play is called strap your play is called map for radio and by the way all the one acts are going to be presented on Monday night at 7 p.m. and so Saban you live in a lot of places am I right yes and your play I'm just going to say it touches on food and culture appropriation and orientalism it's true, a lot of words would you like to say anything about the short play of the road along those lines or any lines at all so I was born and raised in Quakes I ended up in America during the war and a few years ago I started looking out at the Quakes that I had not been back since the war and I was shocked to find that they had a TGI Friday there in Arabic it was transliterated as TGI Friday and I brought exactly how it is, but alright and then I was sort of like why was surprise I don't know why I was surprised to find out there was a McDonald's there but the Friday was a short place and I was fascinated with McDonald's culture in other countries because I assume they would just pick up menus and take them to countries they don't they tailor them to the countries they're in so like in Japan they have seaweed fries and in Quake they have something called the Macarena, which is a real satchwitch ah I was in Google it's kind of hilarious what these menu items are like even in London I've been there for five years even the menu there is different some sandwiches are not the same as they are and I became interested in food fetishism not the sexual side the cultural side and how major Western cultures are so obsessed with foods from other cultures so in London there's a huge like curry culture because the Asian population is so long that curry is now like a national and McDonald's goes into these countries and the weird trade-off is they're both they're sort of undermining nationalistic national foods but at the same time providing really affordable food to populations that can afford to buy like meat on a daily basis so it's this weird tug of war where we're feeding the population but we're also taking a piece out of the food that they have and I became really interested in this whole eastern McDonald's and how the hell you go into a country and talk about tzatziki sauce which is not the eastern which is on the Mediterranean served in a pita bread also not the eastern so so yeah so that's sort of what the play is about I'm very much interested in the conversation between the western and eastern specifically contemporary stories because I don't think you see much of those we don't see enough representation of the northern eastern slash the eastern American character and I was really interested to see what happened in that putt the eastern American character in the Middle East squaring up against a corporate American discussing food and who has the right to call food there it's a great notion I was going to say that I wasn't going to be the way the great falafel must debate let's not be the way because I'm half Lebanese and we make the best of the map at all okay I suppose I could I'm trying to understand the play as well I think that I could say yes, I think that happens I counter between two women in a laundromat trying to come to terms with their items of clothing I'm personally fascinated by the myth of laundromats because it is a public space I don't know what that actually means because it is one of the most private experiences I've had in my life picking up other people's underwear that I don't know happened before and I suppose I was interested in this idea of small things, items of clothing that can be used with so much meaning especially I mean one item of clothing can mean different things to different people and I'm sort of fascinated sort of I'm excited about that intersection can you and in an exchange that we had because I know that probably all of you are working on the place even as you are preparing the readings of the clothes and the laundromat in an exchange that we had we used a term that really fascinated me that is a writer who has written the band-aid off okay okay what I just wanted to know what does it mean for a writer to write the band-aid off that's really what I'm hearing um I'll put it this way I'll actually, I can describe this small event I have found that I realized that I had worn or touched after a swim experience and I kept sending it off to the watch and I didn't know why and then it came back and I realized one day I was like what is this even I knew what the dress was but I didn't it was almost my different life and so I wanted to and this was for dry cleaning I wanted to actually go to the laundromat and rip off the band-aid and see what the washing of it was and what it meant because in some ways I'm actually fascinated because I use memory and I suppose how we delete or cleanse of memory I think can be physicalized and I think that that is what I think I'm trying to do and that was the band-aid that's really interesting that every time a personal comes into a you either go there or you don't and whatever that is going to be healed to the person I think we tell ourselves stories too as a nation as a culture and as a person as well we tell ourselves stories and I think we try to affirm those stories to the place and to people and I think that for me a laundromat exists this small sort of and I think thank you and Sanaz your play is called Baba Karam I read the play I don't have a description to share with the audience but your play too is an income and I had two main questions that I told you a little earlier I wanted to pose what is Baba Karam just the title of the play so I have nothing to do with fathers I don't do with Baba the Baba Karam is like the weirdest dance you've ever seen in your life that I up until a year ago did not know was a real dance I just thought like it just looks like a drunk man dancing which a question is it's a dance about this guy that's like a drunk man who has a shitty job and has a hard life that protects his streets and as he's roaming the streets he's doing this dance while he's hammered like that's the story of the shit dance I mean that's it wow it's so beautiful I've been seeing it my whole life not realizing this is and then I was like when did you find out I mean honestly like I found out that I needed to change my life yeah because my mom told me I had no idea but like I didn't know like this version of this Irani restaurant in Orange County they had Belliger thing so I wrote something from the Belliger version I was like you know and I just like even the things that are Middle Eastern some of them you know not everything is mine I mean our own culture is like you know we already I don't see it but we have to share it but I don't see it thinking about the misconceptions I've had about my own culture and the other question I wanted to ask you is did you start to play in 1984 and I was very curious about that why did that so this is during the Irani off war 1984 I would say like the early 80s to like I would say the early 90s are very strange to really have been on history as it has become immediately a war part you go to Iran and there are all these street things of murder it's like they look like white and like it's industry and you got yourself to go and explore it and do the other actual pictures they have the pictures it's so strange I'm just thinking about this time I didn't know about that for me I don't know what was going on my dad came here in like 1988 and for me there's a whole you know I just want to raise tears there's a whole like I don't know what was happening in Iran because my parents weren't there so I'm trying to reason that I haven't that I don't really care about that I don't want to worry about that but I have this weird video do you ever have a sense when you are being like that on behalf of Roy you are trying to find something else about yourself maybe not where I became where I was but that's why I pursue it to this day I just try to be white you know one day you wake up and you're like I'm a brown girl you know all this energy that I have put into pushing away from this identity I think suddenly turned on me it sucked out to me now it's everything I love that about me now I'm trying to find something I think not only more but writing used to be like a negotiating of that identity like being wrong or being fair or being not fun but not really you know having like a very religious grandmother there's so much negotiation and not with every asset and that's like what writing is like and I personally for sure and Eunice your play is called that about me I love that and I think I said to you earlier that I was struck in reading it I mean it's very specific to the people involved this play and what it means to them but for me it's just a second generation story it was just so there could have been so many different cultures where people are now in this part of the world and negotiating holding on to what they come from but doing it in this context and I just wondered if there was anything you wanted to tell us about how long have you been in the United States? you're from the United States well I'm from the United States I go to the United States well the story itself I read an article a few years ago they did a piece with me on some shape and they were listening for a wedding night I imagine how awkward that would be especially for like a second or third generation listener this guy he's very stern looking in the photo thinking about the possibility of going in according to each other so I want to play with that I live in Brooklyn do you go to Brooklyn College? yeah yeah awesome so what was that by being in school in Brooklyn and writing about topics like this oh again it was very easy because I've seen experiences I mean the article was pretty thorough as well I actually know the guy now I actually know he's in a mosquing and there is so somewhere right but it was interesting he's actually a very interesting guy he's actually pretty funny which I thought was cool I mean it didn't match the image I saw in the photo which I assume was probably my own bias you often see a picture of a shambles in the association with that you know with the media and what not in the news you know so he's actually a very easy going guy and sort of reflected in the play the guy is very easy going right and in general he also pointed out the fact that it's a second generation immigrant story and I thought that was very important because it's very hard these days you realize there's a lot of parallels between the Orthodox Jewish community or the Catholic community and they have similar struggles and there's a lot of parallels there and it's very important to point that out because you have to humanize the person and realize the story is the same and it's different with the play out at the rough draft festival you haven't been there and seen what Kakao was doing and she's really remarkable and I really enjoyed a lot and then we followed up I interviewed you for Arab stages and I was you made it so easy because all I did was pose a few key questions and you just answered so thoroughly and it's in a heartfelt way so thank you for doing that in the interview and it was a hard thought back to a couple things you said in the interview for the benefit of the audience you mentioned one of the primary challenges in adapting the novel is what you call cultural translation and this is a term that I've heard a lot from our friends as they're dealing with for instance our friend who translated the Lama Capri's play that will be part of this festival has said that many times that when he's translating from Arabic to English he's not only dealing with the language but he's also transferring the story in a way that he hopes will actually resonate with the audience and I just wondered if you could give an example of dealing with that issue of cultural translation what that meant in terms of putting this novel on the stage yeah it's a really good question I mean you know the novel was written in the early 2000s the author a lot of the LaSwanis you know and I would say that the point of view of the novel was sort of the tone the voice of the novel is very much you hear the tone of an older sort of erudite Middle Eastern man but there's a very wide range of novel there's at least a dozen main characters two of them two of the real essential characters one is like a young woman of very sort of humble means attracting her journey through this society and she tries to sort of navigate what it's like to be a young woman of humble means when all that's expected of her is to sort of get married and have children and she decides that she wants more than that and then there's another character who's a gay man who lives sort of this somewhat positive but fairly he's a confidently gay man sort of living in downtown Cairo and sort of how he navigates that when he's not allowed to have a relationship in this sort of I would say in the novel you sort of feel dare I say a sort of judgment of those characters who sort of point to you from the author's voice which is like he sometimes paints a sign that this central young woman is slightly sort of opportunistic or desperate he paints had to he sort of explains his gayness as a form of trauma and so for me sort of playing this into first a theatrical adaptation and the conversation that I had with I haven't dealt with Alain personally through these representatives he's a lover of theater he said really specifically he said I want this play to work for an American audience he said that really specifically this is a play for America this is a play about Egypt play about Egyptian people but I want it to feel that I've grown up in the last Egypt that that sort of judgment of those characters would not it would not fly so besides that in this play is a very different character than she is in the book but the gay characters are very very different characters only because I need it to sort of paint those characters in a way that we will relate to and even though they still very much their journey is very much the fight of the book I think the way they come to this stage and the sort of way they empathize with them is more through a kind of western you know in case you're not familiar with the novel or the film there's a film for a very popular TV show and the TV show TV what's that? it's a TV show I didn't even know that currently it's not very good that's probably why I didn't know any TV shows but just to say that to give you the picture and something that I really feel you're accomplishing with this adaptation is a sense of all these lies going on at the same time so these people are living in the Yakubian building which is actually where Alice Plenty's office was right in that building and it was a kind of a holdover from a more elegant era and the rooftop of the building which maybe in an earlier day was just a place where people don't take a sun then became a place where all these pop-up apartments there are more like sheds in a way that people with less money lived in and so the building is filled with old money and no money and all different kinds of people and their adaptation really goes a long way toward capturing that sense of all this going on at the same time without having the visual sense because we didn't have it in the reading that we gave I still had a quarrel with that sense like that a notion of that life was going on in this apartment while that was going on was really fascinating so I'm very excited to see what we're going with this now how many actors are there? Oh that's all the big piece Cather tonight one quick second because the thing of first of all I totally get to be like kids for an American I'm totally down with that but I think about this because I have to play basically about me and my nephew who wanted to be a pilot and there's all this stuff about Lebanon and Beuze and like I talk about Fulva and it's like how much can you spend in the audience and then I think wait a minute when I was like a nerdy theater kid I saw Glassman Ashery like I don't fucking know anything about that world but I'm expected to understand it I'm expected to understand street carding desire I've never been to New Orleans I don't know anything about that Southern life so it's something that comes up for me not in regard to what you're talking about shaping, right? you're talking about drama character but I find it really fascinating that a lot of us feel rightfully so that we have to kind of help an audience out I always have a Google Doc for all my plays because it's like if you need to know what Noster looks like here's Noster and I don't think this is a bitching complaint but I mean there's an assumption for a Tennessee Williams play that you'll do that work that audiences will go on that ride and I find it interesting that we sometimes question will they take in all this world that I'm presenting to them can they do that? and yet we're constantly presenting words we constantly see work that do that we'll just throw that out there that reminds me of what Hannah said in her remarks which had to do with this woman who made the greatest one who would come to see her play and came up to her afterwards and said I'm going to go home and I've got someone else I don't know I said without the British accent you know so actually who we going to you guys now so you have written a play called Follow You Down the Stairs this is not the first time we all have written songs together right? interesting let me read the description so it's Bagdad 1975 invited to teach in a city steeped in history of great scientific discoveries hotshot physicists come on leaves the Ivy League and finds themselves in a superior landscape by revolution and of course great potential coffee between the desire and the tribute to a burgeoning scientific community and a firm commitment to science as a tool of non-violent liberation is entanglement between the world as it is and the world as it wishes it to be and ok so yeah and for me this is when I read this play too I think this is what I was referring to earlier when I said it stylistically dramaturgically story wise this is a very diverse series that we all work together and this jumps out as a perfect example of that so 1975 why that moment? so this play is actually based on a series of experiences that my dad actually came along with and so that was the original period in Iraq is a great distinction in the sense that there was a lot of many women enrolled in universities in Iraq in that period and driving and construction a government that was starting to become a part of the scene and shows and putting in various stuff but which would also very much be needed in the pan-aridist movement and so thinking about the possibility of this to be on the mind right I mean it's his own and a very old but sort of ultimately in that moment place potentially it's his own I think for us and just the topic of science and the ethics of science is oppressed I think it's surprising to be a root of people yes I and I read it I thought yeah it's his own too because even though maybe based on something that really happened that you were inspired to flesh up that story I feel as though that's something that I always get from you to see that based on the situation you want to talk about that a little bit I mean without giving too much away about the play I want to also just say that Jamal who is now curious and called Kamal was that negative mom no no I'm saying we basically knock this guy's head whatsoever we'll call you Kamal but he wrote he actually wrote about 20 pages and they were very very doctor strange and I said tell him we gotta do something about this I said if you want you don't have to believe me but I said someone needs to do something about this and so he did and he came to play personally grapple with what those ethics are constantly meaning telling us this there's a film I talk about this a lot there's a film that exists with one of the coos and Saddam is on stage and he basically starts talking just like a theater like this and basically people start getting like let out so he would say you know John Eisner what do you have to say for yourself and then John gets parted out with how did you and killed and killed oh yeah very clear right one guy stands in the middle of it and starts crazy and so not right he's like oh man you're the best mother fucking person you've ever seen and I am willing to say I could have been that person to keep myself alive and we argue about it to them like how do you know that that's coming that that's which how do you know a lot of us at this table you said your dad was in 78 but people get who they smell the chain makes you unhappy they leave so for a lot of us change and leave it is like woven into our stories right my father left Lebanon in the late 50s there was a war I was like that are you confused you know the civil war he goes no it's a different war but I mean he didn't have to do right he didn't have to do who are the people that see that coming and I was I'm still I'm endlessly fascinated with all the people that were in that room and what you're thinking about those moments and how did it get to that so you know we have this guy who gets dropped in and he's the Palestinian in you know Princeton and parts of the play are necessarily funny because it's the harsh shit that was happening around him but how how he makes the decisions that he makes is still a mystery to me and I've been working on this play for like five years you know we haven't really had a real public reading of it so this is really exciting for us but you know I'm fascinated with that and the fact that so many of us in hindsight go well I would have not been that person and I'm kind of like I don't know I really scared to death so what would I have said and then the other piece of it is all these ah the Middle East lost so many scientists and it's happening now you know and then infrastructure goes away and people leave and they don't go back I'll have to mention the artists all the artists we know Syria are or most of them are in exile so what happens to a region you know one of his main things in life and I have a pleasure to get to know Jamal with my family today is that he wanted to establish a scientific institute he tried in like three different countries so he wanted that to happen and then he thought it could happen in your life and then you'll see hopefully that's not the only kind of what happens he just wanted to say anything about what it means to run a play together that's such a man who will be your role since you know last time you know but like how do you do it? it's funny for us right it's funny it wasn't personally a great great joy in it I mean I think people are curious about a lot of the same things and we're curious about investigating the interior of a lot of the same things right so that I think is the basis from which everything has flowed you know it's interesting to touch on this question of ethics and falling down stairs because I think that I'm not exactly the right thing our primary mode investigation of this play is how does I think we both reflect how does somebody who finds themselves in these really dangerous potentially life threatening situations still make really ethical choices I think just to circle back to what Heather was saying Americans have we have these pretentions that like this could never happen to us right I mean and yet you know we find ourselves in control and sort of ask them a question like oh you know who ends up in the room and how much we're all still here so there's also that piece of this play right like the frogs in boiling water kind of question which may be more important today than even when we started writing this play and so I think that for me the piece of this is that I hope that it opens up a dialogue where we start to not just look at this as a play about Iraq right but a play that maybe investigates things that can happen anywhere at any time and that maybe opens a portal to our examination about the lies that we tell about ourselves and I think that another thing that we're very curious about okay I'm going to tell you just a little bit about the last full-length play that will be presented which is Mrs. Grada's Pain Threshold by Adela O'Connery translated by Asana Ghoul-Zak and inspired by the author's aberration for The Davisee Women who push against the edges of all the constraints that the society norms with its providing family expectations in subtle and personally significant ways Mrs. Grada's Pain Threshold focuses on one such woman facing middle age and life as a recently widowed single woman unexpectedly being some man who's almost a possibility of a new start. A subtle, almost mysterious and moving play about coping with past and trying to find new love. This is a play that Heather and I play very well because actually we were kind of before I commissioned the translation of the play that is done by Asana Ghoul-Zak and it was workshopped a lot and I just want to read briefly what Adela and Asana sent me about the play Adela wrote I would like to say that Mrs. Grada's Pain Threshold is one of the most important plays for me. The play offers an understanding of the pre-revolution period in Syria and there's tensions before them but under the surface. This experience was very important for me as I was targeting middle class women in the 40s as they realized the difficulty in achieving their dreams. This is why the play needs so much so having the opportunity to develop the play in English with the fantastic translator Asana Ghoul-Zak and Gorky with the support of the large figures bill was very significant. Having said that it is very important to develop the play today so that we can look back at Syria pre-revolution although the play is not explicitly political I think it is worth looking at some of the questions being asked and how perspectives on Syria have changed The play tackled a number of social challenges which helped us better understand Syria in its historic context. I'm so happy to see the play being given to the United States and even to the kind of questions raised by the presentation Hassan wrote When plays about the Middle East are considered for translation or possible production in the West they often carry a clear political theme as if Arab playwrights have to always be the explainers of their political situation What is refreshing about this is not as pain-threshold is that it dispersed in foremost the story about love and loneliness It is deeply rooted in Syrian culture and yet that does not ender its inverse in European On reading the play one of my years of care with which I've developed has created these characters and the attention is paid to all aspects of their lives I hope my translation does justice to this delicately leading in the play That was the last full-length play presented in the festival but without further ado I want to turn to Heather again and just checking out the short play that you are working on that will be presented on the 15th right? Yes It's part of a larger piece that's yet unfolding on migration and so I'm just lifting bits of it to read because I need to hear it and so that felt like the most useful my most useful idea but I'll say that it's after convergence of a lot of inspirations and one is obviously the migration and refugee crisis is local it's here, it's there, it's everywhere My I had a hundred family members in Iran at the start of the second one and now I have one arguably two cousins so they're just everywhere so when I watch the TV with the refugee crisis it's like wow we're the diaspora I'm watching it I'm full but that said I also watch the theater quite closely I wrote a play about a refugee family that's going to be here in New York and I'm always sniffing it looking at it from a lot of different angles and I know that it seems like there's just so much theater coming out about the refugee crisis so much film, so much art and I have to say like the lens I keep looking at is are we be victimizing because it's like we're creating these I don't know I just mean like I've seen a lot that's like what happened to them and it's true I'm not saying all things are happening I'm just saying I'm really really looking at the lens from every angle and saying come on we're not talking about this correctly yet one of the reasons I was so drawn to Salim Salim and to Khan's play is because in relation to Palestine which obviously is very important to me but I really want America to look at it walls and borders and lenses, you know I want those plays in Texas I want that play in Brownsville that's why I said let's do it here so anyway, this play that I'm working on the other convergence was when it came out of my mouth one day creating empathy is not the same as creating value I was like okay I've got like two decades worth of theater experience creating empathy and it's that thing that we're you know, it's that thing that we strive to do, did you change lives today? yes I did I did change I'm getting emails from around the world every other day, I change their life it's beautiful it's just like but what then what before we're at so what that the 6-foot tall guy with a pentagon, sobbing in my arms backstage next to the Iraqi woman sobbing in my arms so what, we're still here we're still at a crisis you know, we're at a crisis so this play about value is a little more value oriented than it should be and the value I really started flipping in and just started following and I'm like who makes money where do they make money why do they need this to be perpetuated who's passed off to whom and why where's it going to go next why is it in China buying the Port of Perez in Greece equates something with me with when my cousin moved to Houston and how he got status and then what job he got and where who's buying what why so it's just really sprawling financial piece of thing that started with just wanting you know, net worth dot dot dot seen about that like following the net worth of things and seeing and also back to your point who are we in Houston and I'm constantly looking at what is my culpability and what do I not even know about what am I buying when did I buy, when did I caffeine on the way in today and I bought it to be better for you guys right? I want to be better for you I want to be more awake Anna Woodruff who was a well she's your friend of mine but we went to Colombia together and she's never been to Turkey and yet we find coming around just I guess actually what she said is that we can get lens and what lens means for both of us and I think the intersection of that is actually very interesting because essentially I don't I try not to think every in my own way I try not to think of curating for a specific demographic curating with this and that necessarily and I think Anna really helps me better understand what I'm asking and without providing an answer can we just specifically work with an Egyptian doctor we'll be able to and in that case it was you know I'm I'm born in Canada in the US and some of us born in Egypt now in the US but you know her sort of point of view has sort of grown up in Egyptian culture sort of seen the progression of Egyptian society sort of free to post-European which is one of the things we examine and play it sort of she was able to offer this sort of perspective that I think that sort of on the ground that I simply don't have only how to visit Egypt you know spent a lot of time there years but not being an Egyptian citizen and that was sort of a vital component to sort of how it feels but how it feels very good, yeah and I work with Lana Wall out of Georgetown she runs their theater program there and I'll just say it's been a brilliant relationship over a decade because she kind of knows the inside of my head better than I do and that's that's just it's such a help I mean she's not Middle Eastern but she her specialty is female and trauma you know we're really attacking the same lens all the time from all these different angles and she's an amazing theater artist Good, yes Hi, my name is Leah I am a Lebanese actor and writer and I'm just going to help but before I say my first question I just have to say that this is so amazing this is so refreshing I just moved to New York in September I was really scared I was like what is my community going to look like in things in the Middle Eastern culture this is absolutely wonderful and I found out about this building and the Manasseh group maybe did nothing such a help I know many of y'all know about that that's the only way I know each other but my question is about the infiltration of that world because I haven't seen really a terrorist on stage or people being perceived as a terrorist on stage it's been within TV and I've seen it in media and that I not only think but believe is what we need to bring down but I don't know how to do that I don't know that's a very broad question but how we can start writing for television or infiltrating that space in the field that the theater community in New York is open which is wonderful but I feel that the media and our screens are telling something different also that the theater community in New York is becoming open becoming open and TV is not yet TV world should be higher higher I think it's about this comes up a lot I don't know I love actors I've been very connected to a lot of the actors they are the ones on the front line doing these auditions I've known actors who said listen I'm not going to do this I knew an actor who had a callback and he determined I don't know how he got to the callback when he told me about the material I was like how do you not realize that but I wasn't chastised like him I kind of understand he needed to make money but he walked and said I think just there have to be more of us we need to get those rooms and that's something that many, many communities are dealing with so that we can be in the room and say but why do you want to do a story about the terrorists? let's start there what is that that you're doing because in a lot of cases now the era of the Middle Eastern character is like set dressing it's like a different Ahmed every week and I've known actors I've known actors who go to auditions and they're like you put down that you want varsity and the people are like this kind of conversation has a lot to be talking about but people say the casting people say it doesn't matter so we have to make it that it does matter and that's hard to ask of somebody who's trying to make whatever the sag minimum is so I just think it's about getting in those rooms and stuff like this and something I think about a lot of those which I'm sure you can see from them just justice panel which is what the smallest handful of how diverse the community is is how there has to be a different back to my value question there has to be a different way we value these artists that's not because we need to write a Middle Eastern guy today can please one of you come in the value is God wouldn't it be cool if any one of these people were writing the American guy because what they're bringing the constant what is that thing we're all in pursuit of and have that after that makes the lens I only want to write American guys from now on for a little while no because I'm really in pursuit of this no there's something my entire life experience has to say about that thing that is so valuable at the table and it's just the way we have to flip the way the conversation is going can't just be in the room for the Middle Eastern thing it's just so small and it's so over it can't be where we're going in the theater or in the film yes I think you also should be aware of the fact that American media created the theater of eras and the ages and it feeds into this to the very westernized notion of any culture that is not a darling culture only has one story on it and since the media's theater of terrorism began in the 80s straight through here we only tend to see one narrative but because of that that speaks into TV and film because they realize all these are fettas but because they're fettas that's the only narrative that comes to understand about our individual culture once you understand that format you have to fight to do it you can't give in and write the traditional narrative there's a way to do it to be sneaky but I think the more people who are interested in telling that story the more people who aren't afraid to say no I'm an actor, I was in Europe for six and a half years before I left and I've just moved back to this day I refuse to go into audition to act as a terrorist or a president or a camera, I will not do it and I've pissed off my age at several times it's like you don't have to go to sleep at night if you don't stand for something you simply fall for anything that's my sort of mini microaggression against the industry but it really is about just understanding where those narratives come from and just saying, alright, how am I going to change it? yes, but yes in fact, that's another way of doing it and later on as you go to the panel back to the practice literally how to see for students how to do it how to do it I did run away from Hirami's own sense of depth to this day I rather created myself in the walls of the room and that's not saying that actors or playwrights who do write their narratives it's not a good or bad it's not an unsuggested it depends off the audience which needs to stop I wanted to say that every artist has to approach it in their own way and I have friends who are actors who are playing the the Arab here and there, not necessarily terrorists but who are attempting when they get those jobs and they're in the room to make the difference in the room and little by little keel away at this depth but I have to say that I hear so many different approaches from artists I think we work in television and film and I think that everybody has to approach it differently I'm not just being diplomatic I think that it all actually in the end works together as long as you're making an active choice on your own behalf whatever it means that they're being sticking with quality that means saying no they're both really valid how about another question before we yes go oh sure I have before I said what and I said yes I still think it was yes but actually I have to think about a lot lately as to you with this question of being on the outside trying to get in as opposed to finding the inside of yourself which is what I am not interested in why I think writers are so important because writers and they tap into what they know but then there's this question about which has to do with how do you create value for that I think it gives a whole lot of time and focus that you can put to what I might call a number of people who used to come and talk about I'd like to create a platform for writers and expressive people are not coming in since there's a lot of really interesting thinking in your places but I'd actually like to figure out a way to produce things and I think that not just work by a particular culture but I come from a particular culture but I don't feel included in I feel as though I'm able to handle myself I just feel as though this question of actually creating a space for financial resources for it is a really important question I think artists take that very seriously too as they think about the question of gold One more question? Yes I'm sort of a little bit about cultural manipulation and also the idea not following an audience but giving them an entry point and access into a new world so essentially basically throwing into this ocean of communities, whatever that means all the different the same receives and subtextual needs there what sort of life-votes do you find useful in your audience in different worlds? How would you like those things? I was about to say I know If you would give a life-vote then you actually are calculating that thing and ask of a Middle Eastern artist you have to teach me, you have to explain to me and I need to understand that You know what? Figure it out on your own I think I don't know who I was talking about earlier There's this thing and I've said this on many a panel over the years but there's this thing within the Middle Eastern theater community where our world has not been widely seen on America there is not other people disagree with me on this but I don't think we have a history of Middle Eastern theater there is a history of African American theater so we're at a life-cycle in that where that somehow is a question that needs to be put into perspective but our world gets like would you have to teach me why this world is about people who these people are, what their cultural norms what their religious norms are you know I resist to that idea now even though that's very difficult and I think what we're trying to do here is just to sort of say you're going to keep on generating this material and it's going to take all sorts of forms so that could be an adaptation of the novel that could be an experimental theater of play that happens to be about it could be a comedy sketch right? and until we keep on sort of those narratives forward and most importantly as theaters produce them and then to get a life-cycle of plays across the country then people will stop asking us to explain and teach but it's really up to the producers of the boards to actually take that lead and say this work is valuable and we need to move it to the floor so I'm going on dietizing but I do think that the more we give the life-boats the more we teach and the more we explain we are keeping ourselves safe and I've also been talking about for a while before in which we discussed this at Langman it just seems to me personally and I think a number of people agree with me that it really is up to the artistic directors to avail themselves of the information about these writers and other writers who are writing about topics they know whether it's a halal date for the occupation or for whatever and they need to become informed and knowledgeable about the work that's happening to the White I'm really moved and really excited by The Mix Fest because it is basically the Atlantic opening their doors and saying okay tell me what's going on and bringing together two Middle Eastern playwrights seasoned writers and say do I need to know and I think that's really astonishing what do you say? aside from the life-boats part of that question the thing that's really intriguing me about the cultural translation part is how to create the cliff edges so like there's a pregnant woman in a play I wrote that when performed in Abu Dhabi it's when her belly is revealed and when it's performed here it is pregnant pregnant out of wedlock like no we do that all the time stuff like so we'll say from Mrs. Vada pain threshold is yeah you have this middle aged woman who's dappling and could she allow herself to have feelings for somebody and the idea of her being divorced widow is like she's not divorced widow she's both is her how did I get right is that her you know it's utterly shameful her days are over for love so an American audience just isn't there's no way they're not going to bring any amount of shame to a divorced widow in the middle age so they're going to be like if you can find there's just nothing so for this reading for the first time we're trying it with a massive age so the person she falls for is way younger we're in the script it's like two years younger and this is like there are different decades because you want to read it because that doesn't happen in America and boy if it does right I mean that's still taboo here it's still taboo and it's taboo for him too like that's you know that's it's uncomfortable it's the whole audience you know yeah yeah so it's just like of course it's hopeful so that the experiment of these two days is well does it change the script too much does it not or just does it create an edge a fine wire to something that needs a you know and is that a life quote I don't know I thought it happened where I mean to me it's partly about what we all want to be we all want to be like good writers good slash great writers we all want to be like that so the great writing will pull you in or not pull you in and at the end you go I don't know what I just saw but that was amazing right so the same that you would ask any drama contest I think I did have a situation where with my play the hour feeling when it was we manifest you know smart women said wait I don't understand what the fireworks are or why they thought that the war was happening but they're actually fireworks and who's independent state and I thought oh my god I haven't done my job of communicating for the fact that this young Palestinian guy is growing up within like you know it's like two miles away right right from Jerusalem so that's who that is so I found I found myself you know like look if she's not on board in that moment then the audience isn't going to get it so I need to find a way of making sure they understand the problem I think it's an ongoing question but um yeah but again I think that's what any drama just some drama just want you to be like you know some drama just want you to be like I don't know what this is and I'm so frustrated I can't so I think I mean in some ways I mean we're dealing with the same way anyone but I think we do all I would bet many of us here have been in rooms where you are dealing with very sort of white establishment or maybe they just haven't you know there's not a lot of cultural literacy about the Middle East or something and then you say well jeez how much do I need to include here but they're not getting it and that is something you have to navigate you have to make those decisions I haven't heard from younger playwrights they'll be like I wish you were in the room with me because I'm explaining stuff about you know this thing that I didn't think I would have to explain so I think it's an ongoing conversation I think we have to do it gracefully but we also have to understand what our women are and it's like no you know what I'm not going to explain that I'm going to let this audience get they're going to get it you know we have just a few thank you find these lectures we have a few minutes and what I'd really like to do with these just these last two minutes is give you guys a chance to tell these wonderful people what you're up to what's happening next whether it's a reading or a production or you're going off to a residency or I don't know what the hell I just want them to get an idea of the ongoing projects and work that you all are doing Kevin the other time November to December called Nora which has been to DCM to Abu Dhabi and it's constantly being rewritten and explored and that's exciting and that's a deeply feminist ending of our refugee story a lot about you know are we part of a community or are we individuals and the clash of being a rugged individualist in America being from a Middle Eastern place where we have to carry everybody but what I'm working on is which is that and the things I was talking about I just came back from a month in Michigan I'm really looking at communities in America from a fact it's really interesting in my own lens I'm interested in plopping myself into all these communities that I because of how I look I get to walk into and belong it's just really I'm like okay I'm just going to use this and continue I mean I've got deeply conservative Christian religious people in my family in my Michigan there's a lot I'm navigating and I'm just what I'm trying to do is create value like trying to create theatrical enterprises slash conversations then stop empathizing and just really intersect so that's what I'm writing by where I'm going to do it by how I'm going to offend somebody so that's what I'm trying to figure out how to work in that way what else you guys when did you have to play with the so inshallah I will come here yeah I need to talk to you later but and I'm and I'm working on stuff for TV this is so like industry but you know I switched an agent because I now have an agent who's very interested in all stuff that I've written for theater so I'm sort of thinking about that stuff yeah a queer Egyptian man who starts an online relationship with a Sephardic Jew who's getting produced at theater row in the fall so I'm examining a lot of sort of the intersection of queer narratives and Middle Eastern and Muslim stories and that's the area of interest in life I just finished writing that hi there yeah that shows it's independent production growing up that's sort of bad and I'm also working on it I've been working on it for a few months I think Heather you were at the very first act it's a bit of a mess it's a three acts focused on a parallel between brothers of three different generations of Canadians and post 9-11 era and how they sort of client each other's identities and their situations in America and I just got back from playpen when we were on our play helping the firemen because of the radicalization of three teens from the west who are white wow can you do the emerging writers group for a long time? so I did the emerging writers joke last year that's the policy of writing and they were great and I'm not only experiencing the future of the audience ohhhh perfect for this time yeah I think it's so interesting it's like theater but in technology thank you