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