New Threads Staged Reading Series 2024
by Hanna Eady, Edward Mast, Raeda Taha
The 2024 New Threads Staged Reading Series features the work of international Palestinian playwrights:
Raeda Taha’s Where can I find someone like you, Ali?
Hanna Eady’s The Return
Each reading includes a post-show conversation with the audience and the artists.
August 2, 2024 - August 9, 2024
Red Poppy Art House
2698 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Readings are FREE, however registration is recommended as space is limited.
Written by Hanna Eady, Edward Mast, Raeda Taha
Directed by Hala Baki, Hanna Eady
Featuring Maya Nazzal, Wiley Naman Strasser*, Elissa Beth Stebbins*
New Threads is Golden Thread’s annual staged reading series that engages its audience in the process of playmaking and allows writers of Middle Eastern and non-Middle Eastern descent an authentic and supportive space to develop work about the Middle East. Since its launch in 2011, many New Threads plays and playwrights have continued on to receive mainstage productions.
New Threads 2024
Friday, August 2 at 7:00 pm
Where can I find someone like you, Ali?
by Raeda Taha
directed by Hala Baki
performed by Maya Nazzal
An autobiographical monodrama written by Raeda Taha, a Palestinian actor, storyteller, writer, and political activist based on her personal experience as the daughter of a shaheed (martyr). The play is anchored by Raeda’s memories, as well as those of her mother, Fathia, and her Aunt Suhaila, whose journey to retrieve the body of her brother—which was kept in a morgue freezer for two years by the occupying forces—is at the center of this story. Raeda crafts an epic narrative that delves into the complexities of loss, grief, and the enduring impact of political conflict. Where can I find someone like you, Ali? offers a deeply human portrayal of one of many Palestinian martyrs, Ali Taha, a father, a husband and a brother and is ultimately about the experience of many of those left behind by Palestinian martyrs.
Duration: 75-minute, no intermission
Friday, August 9 at 7:00 pm
The Return
by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast
directed by Hanna Eady
performed by Wiley Naman Strasser* and Elissa Beth Stebbins*
*Member, Actors Equity
Two people meet in an auto-body shop in the mid-sized city Herzliya. They might or might not have known each other in the past. One of them is Palestinian, one of them is Israeli Jewish. By the end of the play, both of their lives will be changed forever by the realities that surround them.
The authors have stated “The Return is not a documentary. There are no checkpoints or tanks onstage. The play is a personal closeup of what happens underneath the headlines, every day for decade after decade, even when bombs are not falling to catch the world’s attention.”
Duration: 75-minute, no intermission
Hanna Eady
playwright, director, The Return
Hanna Eady
Hanna Eady is a Palestinian American theater artist. He founded the first theater at his native village in Buqayah (Peqiin), where he wrote his first play Art and Politics (1976). Founder of New Image Theater in Seattle, Washington, writing and directing world premiers among them: Abraham’s Land, and Bosnia-Moya; Seeing Double by the San Francisco Mime Troupe; Two Rooms by Lee Blessing. In 1993 he returned home to create a docudrama about the internal Palestinian refugees in Israel and co-created Sahmatah, Memory of Stones with Edward Mast. He played the role of Ibrahim in the US production of The Admission by Motti Lerner, and in the Hebrew production at Yafa, Al-Saraya Theater. The Return (Hebrew title Oved Shabbat), co-written with Edward Mast, received its US premier at Mosaic Theater in Washington DC, and most recently produced at Dunya Theatre, Seattle. Writing and directing credits for Alhaneen Theater in Nazareth include: the black comedy Love Tunnel, Hajjar El-Arab (Hajjar, Bishop of all Arabs). In 2019 he founded Dunya Productions, premiering Flood with Jenna Eady, Letters From Palestine in the Time of Covid, and Loved Ones, Families of Incarcerated with Edward Mast. His up-coming world premier Almond Blossom at Deir Yassin is scheduled to open in 2025 at Dunya Productions in Seattle. Mr. Eady has an MFA from the University of Washington School of Drama in Directing, a BFA in Theater from the University of Wisconsin, and a BA in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Haifa.
Edward Mast
playwright, The Return
Edward Mast
Edward Mast’s plays and solo performances have been seen in Seattle, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Honolulu, Oxford, Tashkent, Jerusalem, and other cities. Recent productions include Shearwater River, Tent City Planet, Letters From the Future, Tales From Under the Asphalt, and Cry Fury. Plays co-written and produced with Hanna Eady include Sahmatah: Memory of Stones, The Return, The Love Tunnel and upcoming The Mulberry Tree. He has received commissions, awards, grants and fellowships from Seattle Arts Commission, Artist Trust, Seattle Childrens Theater, American Alliance for Theater and Education, CalArts Center for New Theater, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Raeda Taha
playwright, Where can I find someone like you, Ali?
Raeda Taha
Raeda Taha is a Palestinian actor, storyteller, writer, and political activist. She authored and performed several one-woman plays inspired by her life story and her experience as a Palestinian in the diaspora. Most notably, her play Where Can I Find Someone Like You, Ali? directed by Lina Abyad received international acclaim and was performed in over 20 countries. The play is featured in Brill’s Critical Anthology on Modern and Contemporary Political Theater from the Levant, edited by Robert Myers and Nada Saab. Her other one-woman plays include 36 Abbas Street/Haifa 2017, The Fig Tree, and The Gazelle of Akka. As an actor, Raeda has played significant roles in plays across the Arab World, including Returning to Haifa (2011) by Ghassan Kanafani, 80 Degree (2012) directed by Alia Al-Khaldi, Petra Rocks (2013-2014) directed by Lina Abyad, and Ghalia’s Miles (2017) by Zoukak Theatre Company. Raeda holds a BA in Media and Journalism from George Mason University. Her notable career includes serving as a media attaché for President Yasser Arafat (1987-1994) and later chairing the administrative committee at the Khalil al-Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah (2000-2008). Since 2010, Raeda has been a member of the Ghassan Kanafani Foundation in Beirut.
Hala Baki
director, Where can I find someone like you, Ali?
Hala Baki
Hala Baki (she/her) is a theater director, dramaturg, dialect coach, scholar, and educator who specializes in Arab, Middle Eastern and North African American theater. Her recent credits include Yussef El Guindi’s Wife of Headless Man Investigates Her Own Disappearance (2023), Mona Mansour’s unseen (OSF 2022), the devised ensemble play Writer’s Block (2021), and Kareem Fahmy’s American Fast (LaunchPad 2021). Hala holds a PhD in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies from UC Santa Barbara and serves as a faculty member of the Theatre and Dance Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She has published her work in Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, Asian Theatre Journal and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, as well as co-edited The Vagrant Trilogy: Three Plays by Mona Mansour (Methuen Drama 2022). Together, her research, publications, and artistic work advance the representation of marginalized and misrepresented MENA communities in American theater.
Maya Nazzal
performer, Where can I find someone like you, Ali?
Maya Nazzal
Maya Nazzal is a Palestinian-American actor, writer, and visual artist in the Bay Area and a current voice on the community council for Golden Thread’s “Season For Palestine”. Maya received a BA in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University and trained at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York. Her acting credits include the recent role of Baran in New Conservatory Theatre Center’s world premiere of The Tutor, Maryam in Noura at Marin Theatre Company, and Vice Arabia’s short film selection, Asya. She’s worked closely with Golden Thread Productions throughout the years, most prominently as a stage manager and performer in Fairytale Players. Maya has participated as a writer and associate producer for CNN’s docu-series Jersualem, navigating the cultural sensitivity of the project from a Palestinian lens. In 2022, her original work was selected by the Red Sea Film Festival and Middle Eastern Media Initiative for writing development in Saudi Arabia. Outside of the performance arts, Maya has become a self-taught artist, starting with hand painted denim to ceilings and four-wall murals. With a focus on Middle-Eastern inspired creation, her art brings a warm feeling of familiarity to the bay for those who are home away from home.
Elissa Beth Stebbins
performer, The Return
Elissa Beth Stebbins
Elissa Beth Stebbins (she/they) is a Bay Area based actor, teaching artist, and theatre maker. Recent regional credits include Mrs. Christie and Nan and the Lower Body (TheatreWorks), Colonialism is Terrible, but Pho is Delicious (Aurora Theatre Company), Becky Nurse of Salem (Berkeley Rep), Kings, Kiss, The Village Bike, and Caught (Shotgun Players), In Braunau (San Francisco Playhouse Sandbox Series), Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. and You For Me For You (Crowded Fire Theatre), The Little Prince (Marin Theater Company), and Minneola Twins (Cutting Ball), among others. Elissa is also a Teaching Artist, and a co-founder of Analog Theatre, where they produce and devise physical theatre. Elissa graduated from Santa Clara University, and has continued training with Shakespeare and Company, and Atelier Mask Movement Theatre in Italy.
performer, The Return
Wiley Naman Strasser is an actor, dancer, singer and musician. Previous work with Golden Thread include productions of Drowning in Cairo and Urge For Going. Other recent credits include 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. Up next: As You Like It at CalShakes. wileynamanstrasser.com