Nora Ludden (Mulla Azrael) Linda Noveroske (Monsieur Satan)   Stephanie Carwin (Houri) George Q. Nguyen (Creatov)	Golden Thread Productions presents "ReOrient" A Festival of Short Plays   A new collection of works written by playwrights from, or on themes concerning, the Middle East.� From fantastic to poignantly real, steeped in music and drama, this year�s festival is sure to �ReOrient� your senses.   The 2-hr program includes four short plays: The Myth of Creation By Sadegh Hedayat one of Iran�s most respected writers and social critics of the early 20th century. Translated by M. Ghanoonparvar. A cartoonish parody of the Adam & Eve tale or did somebody say �Iranian Angles in America?� Not! Directed by Torange Yeghiazarian
Linda Noveroske (Sara) Saul Montez (Khaled)	Min El Alb Lilalb (From my heart to yours) By Tom Coash named Outstanding Playwright at the 1999 Pittsburgh New Works Festival and winner of the Kennedy Center�s Lorraine Hansberry Award. A delicious encounter between an American woman and an Egyptian man on top of - where else, the pyramids! Directed by Arlene Denise Hood
RassheedahSchelble (Muse) Jeanine Robinson (Clio)	The Muse Text and original music by Drew Khalouf Bay Area writer, performer and ACT alumnus, Khalouf transports us into the surreal world of creativity and desire blending jazz, poetry and Arabian melodies. Directed by Laura Hope Owen
Paul Santiago & Rachel Christopherson	Voices By Ghazi Rabihavi introduced to London audiences by Harold Pinter who described him as a �gifted writer.� An answering machine awaits. In this laconic study of loneliness, the color of exile is rendered red. Directed by Hal Gelb

 

 

CAST:

Stephanie Carwin, Rachel Christopherson, Vida Ghahremani, Michael Givler, Nora Ludden, J McMullen, Saul Montez, George Nguyen, Linda Noveroske, Jeanine Robinson, Paul Santiago*.

*Member of Actors� Equity

 

 

Scene Designer Bert Van Aalsburg Costume Designer Andrea Taylor Light Designer� Harry Rubeck Sound Designer Jo Cronin Mask/ Puppets Designer� Pardis Parsa Stage Manager Nancy Neilson With Termeh Yeghiazarian & Maria Zamroud

 

July 13 & 14 Previews, $12

Opens Saturday July 15 - August 19, 2000

Thursday, Friday & Saturday evenings at 8pm

 

EXIT Theatre

156 Eddy St., San Francisco, CA.

Between Mason & Taylor, 2 blocks from Powell St. BART

 

Information/ Reservations 510.986.9194

Tickets also available through Tix Bay Area at Union Square & www.ticketweb.com

Regular admission $15 Student, Senior & TBA member discount $12

Group discount (6 or more, paid together) $10

 

Biographies

 

Playwright and Director, Tom Coash is currently living in Haverhill, MA where he founded the Neworks Theatre whose mission is to produce new multicultural and/or internationally themed plays. Coash spent the last four years teaching playwriting at The American University in Cairo and had several plays produced there including his recent play Censory Perceptions also produced at an international festival in Beirut, and KHAMASSEEN produced at the Edinburgh Theatre Fringe Festival. In 1994/95 Coash was a Jerome Fellow playwright-in-residence at the Playwrights� Center in Minneapolis. Tom has worked professionally for several theatres including Actors Theatre of Louisville and won several awards including the Kennedy Center's Lorraine Hansberry Award, the Robert H. Lehan Award in 1999. Tom was named the Outstanding Playwright of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

 

Since migrating to United Kingdom from his native Iran in 1994 where he was banned from publication Ghazi Rabihavi has written several plays as well as short stories and novels.� Among his published works are The Iranian Four Seasons, Merriam�s Smile, David and White Stone.� Harold Pinter introduced Ghazi to the British public by producing his play Look Europe! In 1997 which he called �A work of a gifted writer.�� A great source of inspiration and support, Pinter later wrote about the play Stoning �A very strong and powerful piece of work, beautifully constructed.�� Ghazi is currently directing and producing four of his short plays with the support of the Queensland Multi-Media Art Center in London slated to open in late June of this year.

 

Born to an aristocratic family in 1903 in Iran, Sadegh Hedayat was among those distinguished students sent to Europe by Reza Shah to earn an education with the expectation that they would facilitate the nation's progress towards modernization. Soon after his return Hedayat co-instituted the Rab'a (The Foursome) a group consisting of young returnees whose progressive ideas antagonized both the literati and the government. In 1936 the Rab'a was outlawed and Hedayat left for India.� Hedayat�s popularity outside Iran is due mostly to his short novel The Blind Owl (1937) which has been translated into numerous languages.� Among his other published works are Buried Alive (1930), Three Drops of Blood (1932) and Haji Aqa (1945).� In the majority of his works Hedayat is extremely critical of religion in general and the Moslem clergy in particular.� He also looks down at the foreign powers� involvement in Iran as well as the corruption that is rampant among the local government rank and file. The English text of Myth of Creation is translated by M.R. Ghanoonparvar and is based on the only version of the original Persian available (Paris 1946).� This limited edition of 105 copies indicates that it was not for sale. Hedayat committed suicide in 1951, in Paris. (The Pearl Cannon [Iraj Bashiri] and The Myth of Creation [M.R. Ghanoonparvar] Mazda Publishers)

 

Biographies

 

Among the plays staged by Hal Gelb are Betrayal (Pinter), Knuckle (David Hare), The Road to Mecca (Fugard), Six Degrees of Separation (Guare), Three Cuckolds (Comedia) and The Maids (Genet). His production of Today a Little Extra at the One Act Theatre was named one of the three best of its season by the San Francisco Examiner.� Gelb directed his own translation of The Misanthrope and was one of a group responsible for the R.G.Davis/Samuel French version of Dario Fo�s We Won�t Pay! We Won�t Pay! He has directed and/or written for television, multimedia and documentary film. His media work has been seen on PBS, KTVU, TV 20, KQED and at the Brussels World Conference on the Environment and New York�s Museum of Modern Art. Hal has been the West Coast theatre critic for The Nation.

 

Laura Hope Owen is the Literary Manager at the Magic Theatre where she was also the Festival Director for three recent playwrights' festivals: Playwrights in Danger Festival, Festival of Lesbian Playwrights, and the Irish Women Playwrights Festival.� Laura has performed with numerous companies throughout California, Colorado and New York. Recently she appeared in a one-woman show Girl Scout Rejects directed by Virginia Reed at the Women's Work Jubilee at Venue 9. She holds a B.F.A. in Acting from the University of Colorado, Boulder, a M.A. in Drama from San Francisco State University where she directed and dramaturged several projects, and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Theatre at the University of California, Davis.

 

Bay Area director and actress, Arlene Hood teaches theatre arts at Moreau Catholic High School. Her students have received numerous awards including a four-star rating at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for Recent Disappearances.� Among Arlene�s directing credits are: Antigone (Anouilh), Khamasseen (Tom Coash), Macbeth, Man of La Mancha, Our Country�s Good, The Real Inspector Hound, and 1776.

 

Founder and Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, Torange Yeghiazarian writes, acts and directs for the theatre. Among her credits are Publicly Resting staged at Six Plays � en short festival of one acts, Behind Glass Windows, adapted from a short story by Iranian writer Sadeq Hedayat, Waves, staged at SF Fringe 94, and performing in DARVAG and Shotgun Players� coproduction of The Eight Voyage of Sindbad by Behram Beyzaii. Torange received her Masters degree in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University where she had the opportunity to collaborate with the SF Mime Troupe in creating the melodrama TORCH!