ALAA: A Family Trilogy

Adam Ashraf Elsayigh

Adam Ashraf Elsayigh was born in Cairo, Egypt. When soon thereafter, his parents relocated the family to Dubai, Adam grew up in a religious Muslim household with American cable TV, going to a British school in a Gulf state where over 90% of the population were migrant workers. This upbringing at the cross-section of cultures is at the core of the artist Adam is. Today, Adam is a writer, theatermaker, and dramaturg who writes and develops plays that interrogate the intersections of queerness, immigration, and colonialism. Adam’s plays (including Drowning in Cairo, Revelation, Memorial, and Jamestown/ Williamsburg) have been developed and seen at New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, The Tisch School of the Arts, The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, and Golden Thread Productions. Adam is a fellow at Georgetown University’s Laboratory for Global Performance and an Alliance/Kendeda Award Finalist. He holds a BA in Theater and Dramaturgy from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College. Learn more about what Adam is up to at https://www.adamaelsayigh.com/.

Salma S. Zohdi

Salma S. Zohdi is an Egyptian dramaturg living in the U.S. Salma is the Director of Development & Communications at Noor Theatre Company, a Lucille Lortel Award Voter, and an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Department of Dramatic Writing. Salma’s theatre credits include The Mecca Tales, The Yacoubian Building, Operating Systems, Mix & Match, The Conversationalists, Pilgrims Musa & Sheri in the New World, Global Forms Theatre Festival (GFTF), Silueta, Once Upon A Time Called Now, Drowning in Cairo, House of Joy, Finding Paradise, and MOTHERLAND. Salma aspires to create spaces where we can generously and inclusively examine art, culture, community building, and the necessary global and social justice conversations. MA: AUC - English & Comparative Literature. MFA: Columbia University - Theatre (Dramaturgy).

Evren Odcikin

EVREN ODCIKIN (he/him) is a Turkish-American director, writer, and arts leader committed to championing historically excluded voices and stories in the American theater. His work is heart-centered, politically engaged, globally minded, and centers joy as resistance. He is proud to be the 2024-25 Artist in Residence at Golden Thread Productions, a company he’s been associated with since 2005. Directing: Macbeth and Mona Mansour’s unseen (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Torch Song (Marin Theatre), christopher oscar peña’s Our Orange Sky (Profile Theatre), Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul (Northern Stage), and Amir Nizar Zuabi’s This is Who I Am (Woolly Mammoth, PlayCo, A.R.T., Guthrie, and OSF), as well as work at Geva, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, InterAct, Cleveland Public Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, and Magic Theatre amongst many others. Playwriting and translation: Commissions and productions at Cal Shakes, NYU Abu Dhabi, Golden Thread and Crowded Fire, and Custom Made. In 2023, he served as the Interim Artistic Director at OSF, where he had been the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming since 2019. At OSF, he was instrumental in “saving” the 2023 Season, programmed the successful 2024 Season for the company, and over five years, produced more than 30 productions. Evren is a founder of Maia Directors and serves on the Boards of MENA Theater Makers Alliance and Playwrights Foundation. odcikin.com

Nemma Adeni*

Nemma Adeni is an actress and writer of mixed Yemeni and Indian origin, based in Los Angeles. She has a knack for dialect and speaks multiple languages, including Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Gujurati, and conversational French, Mandarin and Spanish. Her versatile style and improv skills have led to dramatic as well as comedic credits in film and theater. Her last performance at Golden Thread was in the ReOrient 2023 showcase of one-act plays, as Amina in Arti Ishak’s Closure. Since then, she’s starred in several short films including Witness, a short bilingual Urdu-English film premiering at the 2024 Tasveer Film Festival and supported by the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity. She holds a degree in Computer Science from Princeton University, so she can portray computer hackers pretty accurately (in case you were wondering).

Sofia Ahmad*

Sofia Ahmad most recently appeared as Celia in Cal Shakes’ 50th Anniversary Season production of As You Like It. She is a Resident Artist with Golden Thread. Previous Golden Thread productions include: ReOrient in 2023 and 2019, On The Periphery (a Crowded Fire co-production), The Most Dangerous Highway in the World, Isfahan Blues (an African-American Shakespeare Company co-production), and Love Missile. Other local acting credits include Berkeley Rep, ACT, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, PlayGround, Word for Word, SF Shakespeare Festival, Magic Theatre, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and Pacific Repertory Theater. Sofia is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.

Tierra Allen

Tierra Allen creates for collective liberation from her home in Occupied Huchiun/Oakland. As a theater artist and cultural worker, she’s co-created spaces braiding performance, activism, healing, and critical consciousness-raising at theaters, community-based organizations, schools, and parks, behind prison walls and in the streets. She recently performed in Shipping & Handling (Crowded Fire Theater), House/Full of Blackwomxn: This Too Shall Pass (Deep Waters Dance Theater), Josephine’s Feast (Campo Santo/Magic Theater), Babes in Ho-Lland (Shotgun Players), and Sign My Name to Freedom (SFBATCO). She’s won an Isadora Duncan “Izzie” Dance Award, earned award nominations from Theatre Bay Area, directed for 3Girls Theater, Playwrights Foundation, and PlayGround, and choreographed for the National Queer Arts Festival, Spectrum Queer Media, and TheatreFIRST. Their speculative abolitionist short film THE REMEMBERING TIME screened at the 18th International Queer Women of Color Film Festival. Listen to her podcast THE REAL WORK: A PODCAST ABOUT THEATER CULTURE AND TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE, co-produced with We Rise Production, on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

James Asher*

James Asher’s performances include: Golden Thread, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theater, San Francisco Opera, SF Playhouse, Theater on the Square, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Idaho Shakes, San Jose Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, LATC, Ford’s Theater, Washington DC, Union Square Theater NYC, Theater For The New City, HBO, NBC, Hulu, Freaky Tales, Being Us.

Diyar Banna

Diyar Banna is honored to be making her Golden Thread Productions debut in ALAA: A Family Trilogy under the direction of Evren Odcikin! She was last seen as Hero in Marin Shakespeare Company’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. A proud Bay Area native, Diyar is excited to be performing at home again after earning her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she performed in productions such as A Bright Room Called Day (Die Altae), The Matchmaker (Ermengarde), and new works like Infinite Canary (Cassandra Asher). While at Carnegie Mellon, she also wrote and directed Lotus Cafe and Morphine Man for the university’s Playground Festival. Prior to college, Diyar trained at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) Young Conservatory, where she appeared in productions such as After Juliet, Every 17 Minutes the Crowd Goes Crazy, and Bird of Prey. In addition to her theater work, Diyar has appeared in several independent short films, and is passionate about telling stories that transcend borders and build bridges—between cultures, the familiar and the unknown, and between each of us.

Nora El Samahy*

Nora El Samahy is a Resident Artist at Golden Thread Productions, a company member of Campo Santo, and Playground. She has worked at Oregon Shakespeare Company, Portland Center Stage, Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Repertory, Crowded Fire, Magic Theatre, foolsFURY, Traveling Jewish Theatre, Theatre Rhinoceros, Shotgun Players, The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, African American Shakespeare Company, among others. In 2013 Nora founded a performance company called Affinity Project with Atosa Babaoff, Beatrice Basso and Emily Hoffman. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees with Golden Thread.

Lawrence Radecker

Lawrence Radecker is a resident artist with Golden Thread Productions where he has developed and debuted roles in many of their world premieres. He has also worked with numerous other theater companies including Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, Crowded Fire, Aurora Theatre Company, San Jose Stage, Marin Theatre Company, Thick Description, Brava!, New Conservatory, Impact and African American Shakespeare Company to name a few.

Nima Rakhshanifar*

Nima Rakhshanifar makes their Golden Thread debut with Alaa: A Family Trilogy. Credits include Bald Sisters (World Premiere - Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Andy Warhol in Iran (World Premiere - Barrington Stage Company); Sanctuary City (TheatreSquared); Selling Kabul (Northern Stage); Waiting for Godot (Victory Gardens); Comedy of Errors (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); A Christmas Carol, Junk (Milwaukee Rep); The Cat in the Hat (Northbrook Theatre). Nima studied acting at Pacific Conservatory Theatre - PCPA.

Wiley Naman Strasser*

Wiley Naman Strasser is an actor, dancer, singer and musician. Previous work with Golden Thread includes productions of Drowning in Cairo and Urge For Going. Other recent credits include As You Like It at CalShakes, national tours of The Kite Runner and A Christmas Carol, Crave with Stairwell Theatre, We Build Houses Here with Detour Productions, and workshops with The Civilians, Boise Contemporary Theatre, and the Ashland New Plays Festival. wileynamanstrasser.com

Wesley Apfel*

Wesley Apfel is a resident artist with Golden Thread and excited to collaborate on Alaa: A Family Trilogy. For Golden Thread: Scenes from 71 Years*, The Language of Wild Berries – Audio Version, Night Over Erzinga, and ReOrient 2012 & 2015. Recently: Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical (World Premiere), A Christmas Carol, and Poor Yella Rednecks: Vietgone 2 (American Conservatory Theater); Intimate Apparel (Arizona Theatre Company); Lear (CalShakes); unseen and Peter and the Starcatcher (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); and the West Coast premiere of Predictor (Capital Stage). Northern California credits include Somewhere (TheatreWorks); This Is How It Goes, After the Revolution, Detroit (Aurora Theatre); The 39 Steps, Lucky Stiff, Xanadu (Center REP); over 25 productions with Capital Stage, Sacramento Theater Company, and Music Circus. New York credits include the original productions of The Graduate, Gutenberg! The Musical, Bat Boy, The Musical of Musicals, The Thing About Men; and shows with The Public Theater, Paper Mill Playhouse, and Barrington Stage. For Frances. (he/him)

Kate Boyd

Kate Boyd designs scenery and lighting in the Bay Area. She recently designed the lights for Bees to Honey at Marin Theatre Company and scenery for The Language of Wild Berries for Golden Thread. Recent Aurora shows include Born with Teeth, Hurricane Diane, and Everything is Illuminated. She has also designed at Portland Center Stage, Magic Theater, New Conservatory Theater, Merola Opera, the SF Conservatory of Music, Company C Ballet and Theaterworks. Kate is a resident artist with Golden Thread Productions and a recipient of the Gerbode Design Fellowship. Kate teaches stagecraft and design at Lick-Wilmerding High School.

Maxwell Bowman

Maxwell Bowman is a lighting and multimedia designer with side endeavors in interactive art and design.  He is excited to be returning to Golden Thread after serving as Lighting and Video designer for the ReOrient Festival 2023. He has collaborated all over the world on productions by such organizations as the American Repertory Theatre, The Atlanta Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, The Dallas Opera, The Royal Court Theatre (UK), San Diego Opera, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Rep, Second Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, National Sawdust Factory to name a select few, and is an ongoing video associate for Wicked on Broadway and National Tours. Maxwell is a contributing member of the NYC based collective ’GLMMR’; in areas of lighting design and technology integration. He is originally from Tumwater, Washington. He attended Southern Methodist University (MFA in Stage Design), Southern Oregon University (BFA in Lighting Design), and is currently based in Mountain View, CA.

Michelle Mulholland

Michelle Mulholland is a costume designer and arts administrator with more than 20 years of experience in Bay Area theatre. She is grateful to be designing again for Golden Thread, where she has been the Managing Director for the past 13 years. Her most recent costume design work includes Monument, Or Four Sisters (A Sloth Play) for The Magic Theatre and Getting There at New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC). Her other work includes I Call My Brothers and You For Me For You (Crowded Fire Theater), We Swim, We Talk, We Go to War, Urge for Going, Isfahan Blues, ReOrient 2012, and Night Over Erzinga (Golden Thread Productions), Late Company, Daniel’s Husband, Harbor, and Cock (NCTC), Lucia Berlin: Stories (Word for Word), The Colored Museum (African-American Shakespeare Company), Totalitarians (Z Space), Tenderloin (Cutting Ball Theater), The Oldest Profession and The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Brava Theater).