We’re proud to announce acclaimed Turkish-American director, writer, and arts leader Evren Odcikin as our 2024-25 Artist in Residence.
As part of his residency, Evren will direct Adam Ashraf Elsayigh’s ALAA: A Family Trilogy and develop his new play, ORIENTAL: 1001 Ways to Tie Yourself in Knots. Evren also joins the artistic staff to help produce the culmination of the 2024 Season and launch the 2025 Season.
“Over his two-decade career, Evren has done much for Middle Eastern artists at Golden Thread and beyond, so it’s a real joy to be able to support his artistry with this residency," says Executive Artistic Director Sahar Assaf. “His artistic voice is unique, his passion for community engagement and brave political art is contagious, and his impact on the national theater field is unquestionable. What a gift to be able to benefit from his expertise and commitment to Golden Thread, while getting to celebrate his creativity and artistic journey.”
This is a real homecoming for Evren who has been involved with Golden Thread since 2005 as an affiliated artist and staff member. His past Golden Thread credits include directing premieres by Mona Mansour, Yussef El Guindi, Denmo Ibrahim, Kevin Artigue, Hannah Khalil, Said Sayrafiezadeh, and translating Sedef Ecer’s On the Periphery, amongst many others. He is responsible for relaunching Golden Thread’s celebrated New Threads staged reading series back in 2011, and has produced numerous productions for the company, including three ReOrient Festivals.
Evren Odcikin adds: “I am a lucky, lucky man! Golden Thread has been my artistic home for two decades — it’s where I’ve become the artist that I am today. I am thankful to be back formally in this new capacity to work closely with the brilliant Sahar Assaf who has led Golden Thread with passion and grace during these impossible times. And it’s an honor to have my work support the brilliant staff, artists, and volunteers uplifting Golden Thread’s 2024 Season for Palestine.”
Evren Odcikin (he/him) is an arts leader, director, writer, translator, and community builder and advocate. Over the last 20+ years, he has built a body of work that is heart centered, politically engaged, globally minded, and that stubbornly centers joy as resistance. As a Muslim and queer immigrant from Turkey, he works every day to advocate for historically-excluded stories and voices in the American theater, and is committed to building his work with and for the communities it represents. His directing credits include work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Guthrie, Woolly Mammoth, PlayCo, ART, New York Theater Workshop, the Lark, South Coast Rep, Portland Center Stage, Kennedy Center, as well as numerous companies in the Bay Area, including Marin Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, Crowded Fire, TheatreFirst, and FoolsFury. As a writer and translator, he has been commissioned, developed and produced by Cal Shakes, NYU Abu Dhabi, Golden Thread Productions, Crowded Fire, and Custom Made. In 2023, he served as the Interim Artistic Director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he had been the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming since 2019. In these positions, he helped “save” the 2023 Season, programmed the very successful 2024 Season, produced 30+ productions over five seasons, and helped lead the company through the COVID-19 crisis and the devastating Almeda Fire in Rogue Valley. Evren is a founder of Maia Directors, and serves on the boards of Middle Eastern North African Theatre Makers Alliance and Playwrights Foundation. You can find out more about Evren’s work at odcikin.com.
Launched in 2022, Golden Thread’s Artist in Residence program offers multidisciplinary theater artists of Middle Eastern descent an opportunity to join the Golden Thread’s artistic staff in support of programming and productions, as well as receive financial and developmental support for their own work. Past participants include Iraqi-born visual and performance artist and professor Wafaa Bilal and Palestinian-American composer, actor, and director Amal Bisharat, whose residency was made possible by Theater Bay Area’s Arts Leadership Residency.