MysterWriter

I am a playwright who writes to provoke the audience into thinking about things that make them uncomfortable. Two of my current plays are:TO THE DEATH OF MY OWN FAMILY is an intensely dramatic nonlinear play about an Afghan-American woman who returns to Afghanistan to help her father escape, only to witness the carnage of her entire family. Upon her return to the U.S., she is detained, interrogated, and forced to justify her journey in order to reclaim her citizenship. It is about people caught between cultures and how they suffer when human rights are violated. It has been traveling around the country for over two years in short play festivals and independent productions, and back and forth in the city many times as a one-act play.9/12, a full-length play was part of the Impact Festival presented by the Culture Project in New York City last September. It begins with the unexpected death of a Middle Eastern graduate student. It then engulfs an American writer after a random baggage check on a New York City subway, and his Asian American wife, the student's teacher, who become the subjects of an investigation after the attack on the World Trade Center. As a result, their privacy and civil liberties are violated in the name of Homeland Security because of circumstances both past and present which, under normal conditions, would not raise questions in a free society, but which now cumulatively threaten their family, careers and lives. It has a fabulous multi-ethnic cast.CREDITS: Finalist in the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Stageworks/Hudson's 2005 Play by Play Festival (NY), Claire Donaldson Short Play Festival (SD), Mercy Plays (The Haven, NYC); Honorable Mention: Fred Newman-Mario Frattti Anti-Corruption Play Writing Award/Castillo Theatre (NYC). Work has appeared in front of audiences at Abingdon Theater (NYC), Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC) – Summer Conference, Theatre Artists Workshop (Westport, CT), Westport Community Theatre (Westport, CT), Ohio Theater (NYC-Theatres Against War), Book Traders Cafe, (New Haven, CT), Herring Run Arts Festival (Middleboro, MA), Theatre One Productions (Lakeville, MA), Puffin Foundation (NJ) and New Jersey Dramatists, 13th Street Rep. (NYC), Augustana College (Sioux Falls, SD), Darien Players (CT), Pan Asian Rep., (NYC), Lone Star Ensemble (LA), Cabaret for Peace & Justice, Hunter College (NYC), PS 122 (NYC-THAW), Heartlande Theatre Company (MI), SLAM!@The Tank (NYC), The Culture Project’s Impact Festival (NYC), Nuyorican Poets Café (NYC), North Park Playwrights Festival (San Diego, CA), Cornelia Street Cafe (NYC), Bowery Poetry Club (NYC), Mo Pitkin’s (NYC), Abrons Arts Center at the Henry Street Settlement; NU Ways/NU Works Festival (U. Nebraska), with more to come, dates to be confirmed.India: MetroPlus Theatre Festival, Chennai; Ranga Shankara Theater, Bangalore; Adishakti Theater, Pondicherry; and in Mumbai: National Center for Performing Arts, Prithvi Theater, and the National Gallery of Modern Art, where we nearly had a riot when we had to turn people away. In order to avoid the chaos, we did a second, unplanned performance .Nepal: Kathmandu International Theatre Festival 2008, with interest in other countries, as well.Memberships include: the Dramatists Guild, Theatre Artists Workshop (CT), Playwrights Center (MN), Educational Theater Association, and the Academy of American Poets.