Monologue with Critically Acclaimed Theater Artist, Ms. Betty Shamieh
Washington, DC | June 3, 2010 | www.adc.org | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is proud to present a monologue with critically acclaimed Palestinian-American theatre artist, Betty Shamieh.
Ms. Shamieh is the first Palestinian-American playwright to have her work premiere off-Broadway and her plays are currently being taught at universities throughout the United States. She will perform excerpts of her off-Broadway plays, including CHOCOLATE IN HEAT, THE BLACK EYED, and ROAR. In a question-and-answer session to follow the monologue, Ms. Shamieh will discuss issues of censorship and the possibilities for empowerment for Arab-American artists and intellectuals. Her performance will held on Saturday, June 5th, from 4:30PM- 5:45PM during ADC's 30th Anniversary National Convention.
This year's convention, "30 Years of Advocacy and Achievement: Strengthening the Voice for Equality and Justice" will be held from June 4 - 6, 2010, at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park. To register for the Convention please click here. To view the full program, please click here.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
Betty Shamieh is a Palestinian-American writer and performer. Off-Broadway productions of her plays include "The Black Eyed;" "The Machine;" and "Roar," which was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick and is currently being taught at universities throughout the country. Her works have been performed in translation in Austria, Greece, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Her play "Territories" ran for six months at the 2009 European Union Capital of Culture Festival and was developed by Al-Harah Theatre at the Bethlehem Peace Center. She performed in her play "Chocolate in Heat: Growing Up Arab in America" in three off-off-Broadway runs. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she is one of the youngest artists to be named a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM/PRAISE:
The New York Times
"The young writer Betty Shamieh has the playwright's most essential gift: the passion for talk. Ms. Shamieh's rich, urgent prose will catch you up, then fling you into a character's life as though it were your own."
The New Yorker
"A gorgeously conceived and realized drama...Shamieh's theatrical imagination, in its agility and its urgency, brings to mind Tony Kushner, whose faith in eloquence as an instrument of change is echoed here."
San Francisco Weekly
"The Black Eyed is a chillingly beautiful piece about the relationship between seduction and violence!"
Oakland Tribune
"From its first words, Shamieh's play grabs you and won't let go."
Talkin 'Broadway
"Shamieh travels beyond the boundaries of convention, into a realm where the distinction between experience and poetry is almost nonexistent...this allows her to seek and find in the Palestinian struggle a universal connection to the misfits and the maligned in all of us. Betty Shamieh is perhaps the most important and talented of young playwrights in America."
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For a full program please click here.
To register please click here.
ADC has secured a low hotel rate of only $139 to access the rate click here.
