ReOrient 2012

Amir Al-Azraki

Amir Al-Azraki is a lecturer of English drama at the University of Basra. He received his BA in English from the University of Basra, his MA in English literature from Baghdad University, and his PhD in Theatre Studies from York University in Toronto, Canada. In the last four years Al-Azraki has been working on his dissertation “The Representation of Political Violence in Contemporary English and Arabic Plays About Iraq”, and continued to develop a collaboration between the University of Basra and the Central School of Speech and Drama in the University of London on “Transforming the Learning Environment Through Forum Theatre: Developing a Basra University Model.” Al-Azraki is also a performer and playwright and he has presented papers at F.O.O.T., Performing Back: A Conference on Post-Colonial Theatre, and at TCG National Conference. Among his plays are Waiting for Gilgamesh: Scenes from Iraq, Stuck, Notorious Women, Lysistrata in Iraq, and Judgment Day.

E. H. Benedict

E. H. Benedict is an actor, novelist, and most recently, playwright, is delighted to be working with Golden Thread. She is a founding member of Actors & Writers, a reader’s theatre near Woodstock, New York, where many of her short plays and screenplays are read. In 2005 her play Jesus in Las Vegas was included in the Bash! Event at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. In 2006 Jesus in Las Vegas was included in the Z/Magic Monday series at Magic Theatre. That same year, Orhan was included as a staged reading in the 2006 ReOrient Festival for the first time. Another play, American Royals, was selected as a semifinalist for the 2008 O’Neill Conference, the Utah Shakespearean Festival’s New American Playwrights Project, and Pacific Rep’s Hyperion New Plays Competition. In 2009 American Royals received a round-table read at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City.

Yussef El Guindi

Yussef El Guindi’s most recent productions include Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World (winner of the Steinberg/ American Theater Critics Association’s New Play Award in 2012; Gregory Award 2011; Seattle Times’ “Footlight Award” for Best World Premiere Play, 2011) at ACT, and Language Rooms (Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, as well as ACT’s New Play Award), co-produced by the Asian American Theater Company and Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco; at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia (premiere), and at the Los Angeles Theater Center, where it was co-produced by Golden Thread Productions and the Latino Theater Company. His plays, Back of the Throat, as well as Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda’s and Karima’s City, have been published by Dramatists Play Service. The latter one-acts have also been included in The Best American Short Plays: 2004-2005, published by Applause Books in 2008. His play Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith is included in Salaam/Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern American Playwrights, published by TCG, 2009.

Hafiz Karmali

After pursuing his MFA (Directing) at Carnegie-Mellon University School of Drama, Hafiz Karmali participated in an apprenticeship at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) at Harvard where he assisted internationally renowned directors Robert Wilson and Andrei Serban. While at the ART, he was a Teaching Fellow in the English Department at Harvard University for courses taught by Professor Robert Brustein. Most recently, Hafiz remounted his favorite Sufi poem Conference of the Birds by Farid uddin Attar in Vancouver. Hafiz has directed Rumi x 7 = Tales from the Masnavi in circus style at Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco (2011). As a special event to commemorate Prince Karim Aga Khan’s golden jubilee as spiritual leader, Hafiz co-wrote and directed an international touring theatre production, Ali to Karim—A Tribute to the Ismaili Imams (London 2008). Mr. Karmali has a special interest in cross-cultural performances, showcasing indigenous performing arts of the Islamic world.

Tala Jamal Manassah

Tala Jamal Manassah is the deputy executive director of the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. From 2004–2009, Manassah served as the founding executive director of the Middle East Children’s Institute. Manassah earned her A.B. with honors in philosophy and A.M. in the humanities at the University of Chicago. Plays include The House, which was commissioned by Noor Theater and the American Institute for Architecture and read as part of their Building A New series, and After, which will be produced at CUNY next spring, both cowritten with Mona Mansour.

Mona Mansour

Mona Mansour’s play The Hour of Feeling (directed by Mark Wing-Davey) just received its world premiere in the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Following that, it was part of the High Tide Festival in the U.K. as part of the Rifle Hall plays. The companion play Urge for Going (directed by Hal Brooks) received a LAB production in the 2011 season at the Public Theater. Mona was a member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, and is currently a Core Writer at Minneapolis’ Playwrights Center. Other plays include Across the Water and Broadcast Yourself (part of Headlong’s Decade, which premiered in London). Her play The Way West, about modern-day California, will receive a BareBones workshop production at the Lark in November. Her work has been developed at Williamstown Theater Festival, New York Stage and Film, and Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab. Television credits include Dead Like Me and Queens Supreme. Honorable mention, 2010 Middle East America Playwright Award.

Evren Odcikin

Evren Odcikin is the literary artistic associate with Golden Thread and has assisted in producing the ReOrient Festival. His directing credits include Invasion! with Crowded Fire; Language Rooms with Golden Thread, which was remounted at Los Angeles Theater Center and selected as a Los Angeles Times critic’s pick; The Oldest Profession and Machinal (three Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle Award nominations including best director and best production) at Brava Theater Center; and RHINO with Boxcar Theatre (“Most Inventive Staging of 2010” from SF Weekly, “Best Play of 2010” from SF Bay Times). Evren was born and raised in Turkey and is a graduate of Princeton University.

Sara Razavi

Sara Razavi is a regular performer at Golden Thread and other Bay Area theatres. She is a founding member of elastic future, an experimental arts group working in live performance, and has collaborated on several ensemble-generated works. Her directing debut with Maryam Rostami’s one-woman show, Persepolis, Texas for CounterPULSE Theatre’s Summer Special, was followed shortly after with Denmo Ibrahim’s one-woman show, Baba, for the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. In addition to theatre work, Razavi has led and managed several socially responsible entities, and is currently pursing an MBA. She happily wears her artistic and management hat as a member of Golden Thread’s Board of Trustees.

Silva Semerciyan

Silva Semerciyan was born in Michigan and moved to the UK in 1999. Her plays include Another Man’s Son (winner of the 2010 William Saroyan Award for Playwriting and currently in development at the UK’s National Theatre Studio), Gather Ye Rosebuds (winner of the 2012 Sandpit Arts Bulbul Competition), I and the Village (shortlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting) and Death Row Gourmet (shortlisted for the Seven Devils Conference in Idaho). This summer, her short play, Juke, was produced by Eyebrow Productions as part of Collision for Latitude Festival and Bestival. She is a member of the Conspirators Theatre Project and is currently part of the Studio Writers’ Group at the Royal Court Theatre. She holds a Masters in playwriting from the University of Birmingham.

Jen Silverman

Jen Silverman studied at Brown University and the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Crane Story premiered off-Broadway in 2011 with The Playwrights Realm, and Akarui premiered at Cleveland Public Theatre in 2012. She is an affiliated artist with New Georges, a member of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre and Groundbreakers at terraNova (NYC), and has developed work with the Lark, NY Stage & Film, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Brick (Brooklyn), Leviathan Lab (NYC), and the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference. She has been commissioned by InterAct Theatre for The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, the Gallatin School/NYU for Bones at the Gate: An Antigone, and Red Fern Theatre Co for Lex Before Marriage. She held residencies at Hedgebrook, New Harmony, MacDowell, the Millay Colony, and Djerassi (upcoming). In 2011 she was a US Delegate for a China/America Writers Exchange in Beijing. Her play Still won the 2012 Jane Chambers Award.

Naomi Wallace

Naomi Wallace was born in Kentucky. Her plays include One Flea Spare, In the Heart of America, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Things of Dry Hours, The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East and The Hard Weather Boating Party. Her work has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Kesselring Prize, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, and an Obie. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. Wallace is the 2012 winner of the Horton Foote Prize for most promising new American play, The Liquid Plain.