Middle East America: A National New Plays Initiative is a first-of-its-kind tri-coastal collaboration involving San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions, New York’s Lark Play Development Center, and Chicago’s Silk Road Rising. This initiative was designed to encourage and support the development of Middle Eastern American playwrights and Middle Eastern American plays, of the highest artistic caliber, and to enrich the canon of American dramatic literature.
We aim to challenge both the lack of representation and the one-dimensional stereotypical representation of persons of Middle Eastern descent on America's stages. The goal of this initiative is to provide additional opportunities for writers of Middle Eastern backgrounds, to expand cultural representation of Middle Eastern Americans, and to integrate Middle Eastern American plays into the American theatre repertoire.
The initiative will provide $10,000 to commission a Middle Eastern American playwright to develop a new work. The commission will be awarded to a playwright selected by application process and will include in-depth development support at the Lark Play Development Center in collaboration with Golden Thread Productions and Silk Road Rising. This initiative also includes a development phase that will be designed with an eye towards production at Golden Thread Productions and/or Silk Road Rising.
To learn more, visit www.middleeastamerica.org