What Do the Women Say? 2013
A Celebration of International Women's Day
Through comedy and satire, three women explore the theme of “home” in Golden Thread Productions’ annual celebration of the International Women’s Day. New York-based Leyla Modirzadehwill perform her solo-con-puppet comedy, Lubbock or Leave It! Minneapolis-based Kathryn Haddad will share excerpts from her futuristic superhero play, Zafira the Olive Oil Warrior. Bay Area hip hop artist, Tru Bloo will perform poetry from the recently published anthology, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a tribute to Baghdad’s famous Bookseller’s Street.
March 9, 2013
La Peña Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA
Featuring Leyla Modirzadeh, Kathryn Haddad, and Tru Bloo
Lubbock or Leave It! is the story of Iranian New Yorker Leyla when she accepts a job teaching college in the most conservative town in the US: Lubbock, Texas! Set against a backdrop of American fundamentalism, Leyla and her canine cohort Daisy (played by a hand puppet) learn some hard lessons about xenophobia, nationalism, and dislocation.
Zafira the Olive Oil Warrior tells the futuristic story of a homeless Arab American schoolteacher turned superhero. She relives her experiences in an internment camp for Arabs and Muslims as she imagines herself victorious and powerful despite an increasingly hostile and ultra-nationalistic environment that has cast Arabs as enemies of the state.
Edited by Beau Beausoleil and Deema Shehabi, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here is a collection of poetry and essays in response to the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. It features Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Iraq’s preeminent modern poet, in addition to Mahmoud Darwish, Majid Naficy, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Natalie Handal. Local poets Julie Bruck, Dima Hilal, Elmaz Abinader and Deema Shehabi are also featured among others.
Each year Golden Thread Productions celebrates International Women’s Day by showcasing the work of Middle Eastern women artists. Last year’s program featured Denmo Ibrahim, Jennifer Jajeh, Maryam Rostami and Rohiha Malek. Bay Area poets Deema Shehabi, Dina Omar, Lana Nasser, Esther Kamkar, Haleh Hatami and Elmaz Abinader have also performed at What do the Women Say? Past performances include works by Shahrnush Parsipur, Nawal el Saadawi, Rosemary Toohey, and Majeda Al Saqqa.
Meet the Artists
Kathryn Haddad
Kathryn Haddad
Kathryn Haddad is a Lebanese-American writer, teacher, and community organizer. She founded Mizna – one of the few Arab American Arts and literary organizations in the United States where she served as its Artistic and Executive Director for twelve years. Kathryn is a 2004 – 05 recipient of an Archibald Bush Leadership Fellowship for her work with the Arab American community. As a writer, she has received three Playwright’s Center Many Voices Fellowships, and has had several plays produced in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Area, including a staged reading of With Love from Gaza (1992), at Intermedia Arts, The Arab’s in my Head (1994) at Theater Mu’s New Eyes Festival, With Love from Ramallah (co-written with Juliana Pegues, produced by Mizna, and staged at Mixed Blood Theater) (2004), and Zafira the Olive Oil Warrior (2011) at Pangea World Theater. Kathryn has worked full time as a public school teacher since 1991.
Leyla Modirzadeh
Leyla Modirzadeh
Leyla Modirzadeh* is an Iranian-American writer, performer, and educator. She has acted in theatres across the country including Wisdom Bridge Theatre, (Chicago), A Contemporary Theatre, The Group Theatre, (Seattle), The Kennedy Center, (DC), and New York Theatre Workshop. Most recently, Lubbock or Leave It! performed in New York City at the Plus One Solo Festival, Dixon Place, and The Here Space. Over the last 17 years, she toured and collaborated with Obie Award winning theatre artist Ping Chong. Her animated and experimental films have been screened at national and international festivals (www.twolittleheads.com). She received her BA from UC Berkeley, MFA in Acting from University of Washington, MFA in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, and trained at Second City in Chicago. Her most recent publication is a contributing chapter about documentary theatre in the book Arts Education for Social Justice: A Way Out of No Way published by Routledge Books. *Appears courtesy of Actors Equity
Tru Bloo
Tru Bloo
Tru Bloo is a Lebanese-Armenian hip hop-poetry fusion emcee, percussionist, composer, cultural and justice worker. A music prodigy, Tru studied classical guitar and music theory as a young adolescent and won her first poetry slam at age 15. As half of the hip hop duo, NaR (fire, in Arabic), Tru performed at national and international festivals. Experience Tru’s eclectic music and powerful poetry at her official website, therealtrubloo.com