Golden Thread Productions presents
New Threads Reading Series 2023
August 20 & 27, 2023
Sunday at 7:00pm In Brava’s Studio
Attendance is FREE, but seating is limited, so registration is highly recommended.
Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East, returns with New Threads 2023, its popular and free staged reading series.
This year features two new play commissions. Playwright Tariq Hamami and dramaturg Dawn Monique Williams present The Fox and the Panther, exploring the intersection of the Black American and Algerian battles for civil rights and autonomous governance, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Playwright Adam Ashraf Elsayigh and dramaturg Salma Zohdi present Alaa, based on the life of Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah, with support from the Gerbode Foundation.
Audiences will have an opportunity to ask questions and engage the playwrights and the creative team in conversation after each reading. To learn more, click here.
August 20th at 7pm
THE FOX AND THE PANTHER
Written by Tariq Hamami
Dramaturgy by Dawn Monique William
Directed by Leontyne Mbele-Mbong
In the 1960s, Algeria established itself as the anti-colonial capital of the world, hosting multiple revolutionaries including the Black Panther Party. The Fox and the Panther follows the building of a friendship between Nasi and Kati and their struggle to find where they belong in the world. The play examines the idea of borders, not just national but cultural and familial as well. Nasi and Kati both struggle to connect with their parents in a time of great political change.
Commissioned by Golden Thread Productions, with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts.
August 27th at 7pm
ALAA
Written by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh
Dramaturgy by Salma Zohdi
In 2011, techie Alaa Abd El-Fattah emerged as a leading voice in the Egyptian Revolution through his animated political writings and activism. But Alaa has spent much of the decade since in Cairo Prisons, unlawfully held by a military regime seeking to crush him and the revolutionary movement he belonged to. Yet, they fail every day.
Weaving writings and personal testimonials from Alaa and his family members, alongside vivid memoryscapes and haunting images, Alaa: A Family Trilogy is an epic dramatization of a single family’s unwavering resistance at the heart of a nation’s fight for justice.
Commissioned by Golden Thread Productions, with the generous support of the Gerbode Foundation’s Special Awards in the Arts.