December 9, 2007

Written by Lina Patel
Directed by Patrizia Acerra

An inventive fusion of Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Tagore’s The Home and the World, Sankalpan evokes a time of revolution that draws sharp parallels to the geopolitics of today. A story about self-determination—both in the psyches of individuals hungry for change and in the psyche of an evolving national identity—Sankalpan is set against the volatile backdrop of 1907 Bengal. Personal struggles play out on a national stage, which is rapidly changing as the demands of independence refigure relationships between British Imperialists and Indian Nationalists, rich landowners and poor peasants, and, most explosively, in new possibilities in the relationships between men and women.

June 10, 2007

Written by Julia Cho
Directed by Anish Jethmalani

To the outside world, the Lee boys look like the perfect Korean American sons: Isaac plans to be a doctor and his younger brother, Jimmy, is a champion swimmer with a bright future. But when their widowed father, Boo-Seng, decides to take them on a road trip to Durango, Colorado, all three find themselves grappling with old memories and unhealed wounds. As tempers flare and secrets break open, the difference between who they are and who they’ve pretended to be threatens to tear the family apart.

April 15, 2007

Written by Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Stuart Carden

Award-winning playwright Yussef el Guindi gives us a darkly humorous, sensual, and provocative look at identity, media representation, love, and lust in the Arab American community. Struggling writer Gamal, fueled by frustration over the limited Arab voices represented in the US media, engages in a prank campaign to shake up the system. His weapons? A chocolate mousse cake and lipstick. His targets? A popular Arab American writer and an influential Sheikh. But those in power have a way of turning the tables. When Gamal’s lover, Noor, is convinced by a prominent publisher to alter her novel to satisfy Western hunger for “Orientalist” fare, Gamal lashes out at his own community. The results are staggering.

January 7, 2007

Written by Shishir Kurup
Directed by Stuart Carden
Choreography by Alka Nayyar

Venice, Italy intersects with the Indian Diaspora of Venice Beach, California in a wickedly funny, wildly inventive, and politically provocative re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Written in iambic pentameter and vividly colored by Indian, American and Latino pop references, playwright Shishir Kurup transforms Shakespeare’s original by injecting the story with Bollywood musical numbers, L.A. Punk, Hindu-Muslim tensions, and a distinctly American landscape.

July 21, 2006

Written by S. Vasanti Saxena
Directed by Carol Karaguez

A daughter’s love. A mother’s final blessing. Jessica’s homecoming forces past and present to collide as she learns to understand intolerance and tolerate her mother’s lack of understanding. Sun Sisters is a play about unspoken desires and how even silence cannot prevent their realization.

Performed as part of The Many Voices Project

June 28, 2006

Written by Gitanjali Kapila
Directed by Anita Chandwaney

Set against the backdrop of a small, wind-swept, midwestern college, Double Happiness is a loss-of-innocence story about three friends who tread unawares the wide open spaces of the heart. Anisha, recently arrived from India, starts school with her traditional beliefs in love, sex and friendship intact. Savitri, her American-born cousin and roommate, doubts love and prefers the anonymity of the casual encounter. Together they meet Kevin, susceptible to the allure of both women. Friendship turns into longing and longing into heartache. The triangle collapses, throwing all three into free fall with no obvious place to land.

March 12, 2006

Written by Richard Vetere
Directed by Dale Heinen

Set in 17th century Rome, Malta, and Naples, Caravaggio is the story of the great Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the father of the Baroque, whose daring art and volatile personality attracted the favor and wrath of the church he both loved and reviled. Whether undertaking commissions from the Vatican or confronting the cruelties of the Inquisition, Caravaggio's short life was charged with artistry, violence, and passion.

August 14, 2005

Written by Elizabeth Wong
Directed by Jay Paul Skelton

Dragon Lady. Lotus Blossom. The woman who died a thousand deaths. China Doll is the story of a Chinatown girl who dreams about making it big in Hollywood. An award-winning play, this sensual fantasia takes inspiration from the remarkable life of Anna May Wong, America’s first and brightest Chinese American movie star: her loves, her struggles, her humiliations, her triumphs. From her humble beginnings to the rigors of training in the studio system of Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn, to the heights of success in such classic films as Shanghai Express with Marlene Dietrich, this is a loving and unflinching homage to a woman ahead of her time.

July 10, 2005

Written by Mrinalini Kamath
Directed by Anish Jethmalani

Celestial Motions tells the story of what happens when Leela’s parents, who immigrated to the US from India, are forced to confront a big mistake—they had forgotten to take daylight savings time into account when they had Leela’s Hindu astrological chart drawn at her birth. Accordingly, they have the chart redrawn and the startling prediction sets the 25-year old woman on a journey of arranged dating and cyber romance as her parents desperately try to preserve their family’s identity. Little do they realize that Leela’s destiny is closer than either they or Leela can imagine. An intercultural romantic comedy.

May 15, 2005

Written by Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Stuart Carden

See the Fawzis, an Egyptian immigrant family struggling to find their place within American society. Marvel as they painstakingly navigate inter-generational conflict, their Islamic faith, and the values of two cultures. East meets West meets mayhem in this Muslim American family comedy evoking universal themes of faith, culture, belonging, and desire. Ten Acrobats adds a brand new chapter to the American immigrant narrative as captured on stage.

May 6, 2005

Written by Velina Hasu Houston
Directed by Patrizia Acerra

In Calling Aphrodite, the exquisite and distinctive Keiko Kimura’s life is critically altered when war arrives in Japan. Standing at ground zero in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb falls, she is horribly disfigured. An American philanthropist engages a New York surgeon to take on the case of Keiko and other women scarred in the bombing—“the Hiroshima Maidens” of legend. As Keiko’s crisis crosses borders, her life becomes a quest for enlightenment, restoring her faith in humanity’s integrity and grace.

Performed as part of Woman Warrior Festival 2005

March 19, 2005

Written by Rana Kazkaz
Directed by Andrea Klunder

Gibran chronicles the epic and turbulent life of renowned artist-poet Khalil Gibran, from his poverty-stricken boyhood in Ottoman-controlled Lebanon to his adult travels as an artist in Cairo, Paris, Boston and New York City in the early 1900s. Although born with a broken heart and a tortured soul, Gibran struggles to deliver his message to the world: We are all infinitely more than we think and all we can do is find out how much we are. In the end this dream, combined with the tragic and breathtaking events of his life, compels him to write The Prophet, a book that is now the second-best-selling book in American history.

February 13, 2005

Written by Chay Yew
Directed by Julieanne Ehre

What happened to the women of the Japanese American internment? How did these brave women keep hope in the American dream alive? Based on transcripts, documents, personal testimonies, and interviews with Japanese American female internees, Chay Yew’s Question 27, Question 28 is both heart-wrenching and inspiring, weaving together stories of the struggles, resilience and courage of Japanese American female detainees held in the American internment camps during World War II.

Performed as part of the Day of Remembrance

January 30, 2005

Written by Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Anna C. Bahow

Two government officials pay an Arab American man, Khalid, a seemingly innocuous visit. What begins as a “friendly” inquiry soon devolves into a chilling, full-blown investigation of Khalid’s presumed ties to terrorists. Alternating between the surreal and comic, Back of the Throat examines the way in which facts, evidence and (mis)perceptions are used to distort the truth and how notions of cultural “otherness” impact the relationship between the accusers and the accused.

December 4, 2004

Written by Mohsen Yalfani
Translated from Farsi by Ahmad Houshmand
Directed by Stuart Carden

Political idealism, personal desire, and economic pragmatism all wrestle in Mohsen Yalfani’s Guest of a Few Days. Two friends, separated by divergent paths, and the woman who binds them reunite in post-revolutionary Iran. A love triangle ensues amidst painful truths and political fallout, as dreams are rekindled and ridiculed.

Performed as part of Saving Face Festival

June 15, 2004

Written by Kyle Gorden
Directed by Julieanne Ehre

The Gempei War: A Cycle of Noh Plays investigates the messy aftermath of war, as told in three classic Japanese plays. Tomoe tells the story of a female samurai, unable to forgive her master’s final betrayal. In Atsumori, a war-weary samurai is changed forever after being forced to kill a young musician. And in Ataka, a great general is brought to self-degradation by his brother’s paranoia. Long overlooked in the cannon of classic theatre, these ancient but timeless texts are given new life by a vigorous adaptation for the modern stage.