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Artists Biographies
Yussef El Guindi’s
(playwright) most recent
production,
Back of the Throat,
first staged by San
Francisco’s Thick
Description and
Golden Thread
Productions, won the
2004 Northwest
Playwright’s Competition
and LA Weekly’s award
for Best New Play. It
was also nominated for
the 2006 American
Theater Critics
Association’s
Steinberg/New Play
Award, and was voted
Best New Play of 2005 by
the Seattle Times.
The Monologist Suffers Her Monologue was first presented as a staged
reading by Nibras and
the New York Theatre
Workshop as part of
their Aswat: Voices of
Palestine series. Two of
Yussef's plays are
receiving a world
premiere this season:
Jihad Jones
and the Kalashnikov
Babes with
Golden Thread
Productions in San Francisco and Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat at the Silk Roads
Theatre Project in
Chicago.
 This is
Jessica Kitchens’ first project
with Golden Thread
Productions. Since her
arrival to the Bay Area
almost three years ago,
Jessica has appeared in
Monkey Room
(Magic Theatre),
Blood Wedding, Love is a
Dream House in Lorin,
Ragnarok, Cabaret
(Shotgun Players),
Monster in the Dark
(foolsFURY), The
Greek Play (Elastic
Future), Romeo &
Juliet and
Richard III (Woman's
Will). Jessica hails
from UC Davis, from
which she holds dual
degrees in Theatre Arts
and Political Theory.
 Kamal
Marayati
recently appeared in Homebody/Kabul at the Mark Taper Forum and BAM.
He has appeared
in television, film and
plays around the
country.
He has co-starred
in several television
series, including the
ABC series
Desperate Housewives, Alias and
Daybreak, NBC’s
Law and Order and
Law and Order SVU.
His film credits
include
After the
Sunset,
The War
Within, and
Power Hungry.
He has also acted
in the ensemble piece,
The Color of Justice
at Second Stage Theatre
and played the part of
Salieri in
Amadeus (Circle in
the Square, Downtown).
Among his other
stage credits are
27 Wagons Full of Cotton
(78th
Street
Theatre Lab),
Suburbia (Triad Theatre), The
Taming of the Shrew
(Benbow Shakespeare
Festival) and
I Hate Hamlet (Palo Alto Players).
Kamal Marayati
holds a MFA from the Actors Studio
Drama School.
 Mark Rafael Truitt
has been a professional
actor for the past 25
years. He is also
a writer and a teacher.
His Bay Area appearances
include Ted
Kaczinski Killed People
with Bombs,
Schrodinger's
Girlfriend, Joe
Goode's Body
Familiar for the
Magic Theatre, The
Best of Playgrounds 9 &
11,
ReOrient
Festival, and the
Bay Area Playwrights'
Festival. He has
also appeared regionally
at Yale Repertory,
American Stage, Wisdom
Bridge and Northlight
Theatre, among others.
Film and Television
credits include
Titanic, Star Trek
Voyager, The Practice,
Babylon5 and
Wings. His
book, "Telling Stories:
A Grand Unified Theory
of Acting Techniques"
has just been published
by Smith and Krauss.
 Mark Routhier is the
Director of Artistic
Development at the Magic
Theatre and serves on
the Executive Committee
of the National New Play
Network (NNPN). He
received his MFA in
Dramatic Writing from
NYU. He has
directed several Bay
Area and regional plays,
including The Monkey
Room (Magic
Theatre), The Bone
Man of Banares, 70
Scenes of Halloween
(Encore Theatre),
Cartoon (Impact
Theatre), OPUS
(Orlando Theatre),
someguy, Drunken
Grownups, Iphigenia and
Other Daughters
(Mettle Theatre),
Cowboy Mouth
(MGTC), and Exit the
King (Am. Citz.
Theatre). His
workshop credits include
Carly Mensch's All
Hail Hurricane Gordo
(University Playwright's
Workshop, Marin Theatre
Company), Eisa Davis'
Bulrusher (SF
Stage and Film), Marisa
Wegrzyn's
Hickorydickory and
Rajiv Joseph's
Bengal Tiger at the
Baghdad Zoo (Magic
Theatre). He also
directed readings of
Rich Mitchell's
Brecht in L.A.
His dramaturgy
credits include Lucy
Thurber's
Monstrosity (Encore
Theatre), Mike Geither's
Stars Fell All Night
(BAPF), Tim Lord's
The Secret History
of Caleb Caan
(University Playwright's
Workshop, Stanford).
His short play,
Spotter, premiered
in Best of Playground
and Leaving
premiered in S.O.S. II
at AlterTheatre.
 David Sinaiko
was a founding member of
Chicago's acclaimed New
Crime Productions.
He has performed on
stage and in film in New
York, Los Angeles,
Chicago, San Francisco
and Boston.
Locally, David has
appeared in Cutting
Ball's As You Like
It, Chain
Reactions, Avant
Gardarama, Macbeth,
Woyzeck, The Taming of
the Shrew and
Endgame, and
C.A.F.E.'s one man
production of David
Sedaris' The
Santaland Diaries,
among others.
Additional credits
include Spencer/Colton's
Ahab's Wife;
New Crime's Heart of
the Dog, Accidental
Death of an Anarchist,
and Methusalem;
The Goodman
Theatre's Midsummer
Night's Dream.
Films include:
The Grifters and
Bob Roberts,
among others.
Directing Credits
include: New Crime's
award winning production
of Jean Genet's The
Balcony, Paula
Vogel's Desdamona...a
play about a
handkerchief at the
Boston Center for the
Arts and the New England
premiere of Wendy
MacLeod's The Water
Children.
David and his wife,
writer/director Annie
Elias will collaborate
this summer on Annie's
adaptation of Italo
Calvino's The Baron
in the Trees.
 This is Cat Thompson's* first appearance with Golden Thread Productions.
Most recently, she
appeared as Mother,
Sister Mary, Molly and
others in Edna O'Brien's
Tir na nOg at
the Magic Theatre.
Other credits include
Henry IV parts I &
II, King Lear, Alice in
Wonderland (Marin
Shakespeare Company);
Reckless (SF
Playhouse); Holes
(The Orpheum
Theatre); The
Fugitive Kind,
Misalliance (Cernter
Repertory Theatre);
Visions of Kerouac
(Marin Theatre Company);
Beirut (Pacific
Repertory Theatre);
The Merchant of Venice,
Taming of the Shrew
(Carmel Shakespeare
Festival); Comedy of
Errors (San
Francisco Shakespeare
Festival);
Dreamstealers, Midnight
Brainwash Revival (fool'sFURY);
On the Road;
Coppola's workshop
production, Othello
(Bannam Place Theatre);
Macbeth, Tartuffe
(Sonomal
Shakespeare Festival);
As You Like It,
Macbeth, The Tempest
(California
Shakespeare Festival);
Comedy of Errors
(San Francisco
Shakespeare Festival),
and is a company member
of PlayGround. In
September, she can be
seen as Beatrice in
Much Ado About Nothing
at Marin Shakespeare.
 Torange Yeghiazarian is an Iranian-born theatre artist of Armenian heritage. She writes, directs and performs for theatre. Among her writing and directing credits are AGABA,Publicly Resting, Call Me Mehdi, Behind Glass Windows, Dawn at Midnight, Operation No Penetration, Lysistrata 97! and Waves. Torange received her Master's degree in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University where she collaborated with The San Francisco Mime Troupe in creating the melodrama Torch! Her plays reflect the perspective of the culturally displaced in tackling today’s world of contradictory realities and values. As a teaching artist, Torange has taught playwriting to at-risk youth as part of the Each One Reach One program, incorporated theatre into social studies in Richmond’s Washington Elementary School as part of East Bay Center for Performing Arts’ Learning Without Borders program, and lead acting and play development workshops for Golden Thread Productions. She is the Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, where she has devoted her professional life to exploring Middle Eastern cultures and identities through theatre arts.
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