Golden Thread Productions’ debut production was Operation No Penetration, Lysistrata 97! The classic Greek antiwar comedy was adapted to a Middle Eastern setting where Palestinian and Israeli women unite to force men into signing a peace treaty. Since then the company has continued to creatively present challenging social issues on stage: from Karim Alrawi’s Deep Cut, exploring the universality of human rights received its premiere in 2001 at the Thick House to the San Francisco Bay Area premiere of Nine Armenians by award-winning playwright, Leslie Ayvazian, at Magic Theatre in 2002 to Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat in 2005 examining the loss of civil liberties in the aftermath of the PATRIOT Act. Back of the Throat is now being produced around the US by such distinguished companies as New York’s The Flee and Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project. Golden Thread’s first internally developed production, Love Missile was an original anti-war musical collaboratively created by Hal Gelb, Janaki Ranpura and Torange Yeghiazarian, which explored the dilemma facing a Middle Eastern immigrant scientist who is asked to develop the weapons that will be used against her own nation. Among our early core artists were Janaki Ranpura and Manijeh Mohamedi.

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