2010 MIDDLE EAST AMERICA

DISTINGUISHED PLAYWRIGHT AWARD

GOES TO

YUSSEF EL GUINDI

NEW YORK, NY – Seattle-based playwright Yussef El Guindi¸ author of numerous plays including Our Enemies (Osborn Award), Back of the Throat and Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes, has been selected to receive the 2010 Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award. Honorable mentions went to playwrights Nastaran Ahmadi, Denmo Ibrahim, Ken Kaissar, Mona Mansour, and Heather Raffo.

The prize, which is granted every other year to an American writer of a Middle Eastern background by a consortium composed of San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions, New York’s Lark Play Development Center, and Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project, comes with a $10,000 commission to write a new play of the author’s choice, artistic development support for two years and possible productions at both Silk Road and Golden Thread. During the commissioned play’s development and production arc, representatives of each partner organization, along with El Guindi, will travel to each city—Chicago, New York, and San Francisco—to observe the play’s creative process and to engage in public conversations and panel events about Middle Eastern American voices.

The award is part of Middle East America: A National New Plays Initiative, a first-of-its-kind tri-coastal collaboration designed to encourage and support the development of Middle Eastern American playwrights and plays of the highest artistic caliber and to enrich the canon of American dramatic literature. The program aims to challenge both the lack of representation and the one-dimensional stereotypical representation of persons of Middle Eastern descent on America's stages.

In 2008, the inaugural Middle East America award went to Adriana Sevahn Nichols to develop and write her play Night Over Erzinga, about three generations of an Armenian immigrant family in America. Night Over Erzinga will be presented in Lark’s BareBones® workshop program this June before moving on to a world premiere production at Golden Thread in September, directed by nationally recognized new plays director,  Daniella Topol.

Representatives of the three companies will officially present the prize to El Guindi at a celebration at the Lark this June. The winner was chosen from a competitive application process by a selection committee composed of Silk Road’s Artistic Director Jamil Khoury, Golden Thread’s Artistic Director Torange Yeghiazarian and Lark’s Director of Offsite Programs & Partnerships Lisa Rothe.

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