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New Threads Reading Series

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 Reading Series

Artists engaged with 35 presentations

51 writers (playwrights and translators)
30 directors
17 stage managers
227 actors

Our goals for this program are:

  • Support the playwright in the development of the script towards production

  • Build a working relationship with a new playwright or director and introduce them to our community

  • Share a rarely told narrative, particularly one with current resonance

  • Better understand the casting and production needs of a play

  • Build support for a particular artist or play among our patrons

The readings are accompanied by talkbacks with the artists and experts that comment on the themes of the play. We invite you to join the creative process of a new play and discover brilliant gems never before seen in the Bay Area. We invite you to laugh, cry, and think alongside these beautiful stories from and about the Middle East. Each play is teeming with unexpected humor, surprising characters, and important questions about the world we live in today.

The staged readings are free and open to the public.


New Threads 2021

Arab Play Cycle (or A Triptych of Plays)

by Hassan Abdulrazzak, Hannah Khalil, and Mona Mansour; directed by Evren Odcikin

We’re All Here

by Leslie Kalarchian; directed by Sahar Assaf

I Want To Tell You About Beirut

A bilingual reading of survivors’ testimonies by actors based in San Francisco and in Beirut curated and directed by Sahar Assaf.

New Threads 2018

Drowning in Cairo

June 5, 2018

by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh; directed by Kal Naga

Fog

June 12, 2018

by Edessa Tailo; directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh

Field, Awakening

June 19, 2018

by Melis Aker; directed by Evren Odcikin

Migraaaants

June 26, 2018

by Matéi Vişniec; translated by Nick Awde; adapted and directed by Nima Dehghani; presented in association with Crowded Fire Theater Company

New Threads 2017

We Swim, We Talk, We Go To War

July 16 and 21, 2017

by Mona Mansour; directed by Evren Odcikin; presented in association with Bay Area Playwrights Festival

As Soon As Impossible

August 1, 2017

by Betty Shamieh; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

When Farah Cries

August 8, 2017

by Mudar Alhaggi; translated by Nashwa Gowanlock and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp; directed by Michael Malek Najjar

At The Periphery

August 15, 2017

by Sedef Ecer; translated and directed by Evren Odcikin

New Threads 2016

The One, Percy Ent

July 12, 2016

by Tariq Hamami; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

The Victims, or What Do You Want Me To Do About It?

July 19, 2016

by Ken Kaissar; directed by Evren Odcikin

Those Ills We Have

July 26, 2016

by Novid Parsi; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

Scenes From 68* Years

August 1, 2016

by Hannah Khalil; directed by Evren Odcikin

New Threads 2015

Oh My Sweet Land

November 4, 2015

by Amir Nizar Zuabi; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

Autobiography Of A Terrorist

November 11, 2015

by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh; directed by Evren Odcikin

Stuff

November 18, 2015

by Sevan K. Greene; directed by Erin Gilley

I Call My Brothers

December 2, 2015

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri; translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles; directed by Evren Odcikin

The King Is The King

December 9, 2015

by Saadallah Wannous; translated by Ghassan Maleh and Thomas G. Ezzy; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

New Threads 2014

A Selection of Short Plays from Reorient 2015

September 29, 2014

by Yussef El Guindi, Emma Goldman-Sherman, Ken Kaissar, Tala Manassah, Mona Mansour and Nahal Navidar; directed by Evren Odcikin

The Luxor Express

October 6, 2014

by Daria Polatin; directed by Sara Razavi

Sabra Falling

October 20, 2014

by Ismail Khalidi; directed by Octavio Solis

Baghdad Wedding

October 27, 2014

by Hassan Abdulrazzak; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

New Threads 2013

Holy Land

April 9, 2013

by Mohamed Kacimi; translated by Chantal Bilodeau; directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

The Admission

April 24, 2013

by Motti Lerner; translated by Johanna Gruenhut and Motti Lerner; directed by Amy Glazer

The Most Dangerous Highway In The World

May 6, 2013

by Kevin Artigue; directed by Evren Odcikin

Shot In Baghdad

May 14, 2013

by Jeanne Beckwith; directed by Sara Razavi

New Threads 2012

A Moment Of Silence

May 16, 2012

by Mohammad Yaghoubi; translated and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian

Another Man’s Son

July 18, 2012

by Silva Semerciyan; directed by Rebecca Novick

The Hour Of Feeling

October 1, 2012

by Mona Mansour; directed by Evren Odcikin

The Mummy And The Revolution

November 17, 2012

by Yussef El Guindi; directed by Desdemona Chiang

New Threads 2011

444 Days

March 29, 2011

by Torange Yeghiazarian; directed by Evren Odcikin

The Owl Girl

April 26, 2011

by Monica Raymond; directed by Naomi Newman

The Cry Of The Reed

May 23, 2011

by Sinan Unel; directed by Evren Odcikin

Urge For Going

June 28, 2011

by Mona Mansour; directed by Evren Odcikin

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The ancestral lands of the Ramaytush Ohlone

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