About Middle East America

For Playwrights of Middle Eastern Backgrounds

Middle East America: A National New Plays Initiative is a first-of-its-kind tri-coastal collaboration involving San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions, New York’s Lark Play Development Center, and Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project. This initiative was designed to encourage and support the development of Middle Eastern American playwrights and Middle Eastern American plays, of the highest artistic caliber, and to enrich the canon of American dramatic literature. We aim to challenge both the lack of representation and the one-dimensional stereotypical representation of persons of Middle Eastern descent on America's stages. The goal of this initiative is to provide additional opportunities for writers of Middle Eastern backgrounds, to expand cultural representation of Middle Eastern Americans, and to integrate Middle Eastern American plays into the American theatre repertoire.

The initiative will provide $10K to commission a Middle Eastern American playwright to develop a new work. The commission will be awarded to a playwright selected by application process and will include in-depth development support at the Lark Play Development Center in collaboration with Golden Thread Productions and Silk Road Theatre Project. This initiative also includes a development phase that will be designed with an eye towards production at Golden Thread Productions and/or Silk Road Theatre Project.

Our Objectives

• To foster the development of new world class dramatic literature.
• To identify, nurture, and support a community of Middle Eastern American playwrights.
• To enhance the development of a canon of Middle Eastern American plays.
• To expand the repertoire of Middle Eastern American stories.
• To encourage other theaters, nationally and internationally, to produce the plays of Middle East America awardees.
• To creatively challenge both the lack of representation and the one dimensional, stereotypical representation of persons of Middle Eastern descent on America’s stages.
• To strengthen the respective missions of Golden Thread Productions, Lark Play Development Center, and Silk Road Theatre Project and further each company’s commitment to Middle Eastern representation.