A program piece for the A.C.T. Fellows 2020 production of Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties, dive into the history of playwright Jen Silverman and how she crafted her unique theatrical voice.

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A program piece for the A.C.T. Fellows 2020 production of Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties, explore 50 years of queer plays on the Broadway stage and how they have shaped, as the Betties call it, the Thea-tah!

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Music can have the power of bringing people together, and numerous Palestinian and Israeli musicians have taken this to heart in this collection of songs complied for the lobby of JT Roger's Oslo at MTC.

• Issa Boulos’s album “Being Peace” is a collection of his works spanning two decades of efforts toward harmony between the two nations.

• “The Peace Song” brings together artists from Israel and Palestine to celebrate love and unity.

• “Salaam (Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu),” proclaiming “peace will come upon us” in Hebrew and named for the Arabic word for peace, has become an anthem for peace between Israel and Palestine.

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The city of Pittsburgh has changed drastically since August Wilson’s youth in the 1960s. Many of the locations mentioned in How I Learned What I Learned have disappeared due to redevelopment. In this lobby display for MTC's production of How I Learned What I Learned, follow the strings to explore the Hill District, Downtown Pittsburgh, and Oakland Neighborhood of Wilson’s memory. 

In 1988, Ed Wilson interviewed August Wilson for the program Spotlight. At the time, Wilson was only four plays into his 10-play American Century Cycle and working on The Piano Lesson. In this interview, edited down for MTC's production of How I Learned What I Learned, Wilson discusses:

• When he first considered himself a writer

• Founding the Black Horizons Theatre

• How he created his American Century Cycle

• The importance of exploring our history

• How he found his characters’ iconic voices

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The character Zarina in Ayad Akhtar’s The Who & The What is an author working on her innovative, yet controversial, novel about the Prophet Muhammad. Zarina follows in the footsteps of these globe-spanning group of authors, women all raised in the Islamic faith and using their personal experiences inspire their cutting-edge works. Some are internationally lauded while others are provocative and contentious, but all are shaping the public’s relationship with Islam in literature.

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With this lobby display for MTC, patrons explored the life and impact of Samina Ali (Madras on Rainy Days), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel), Firooseh Dumas (Funny in Farsi), Sara Farizan (If You Could Be Mine), Nadia Hashimi (The Pearl That Broke It's Shell), and Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran). 

In The Who & The What, Zarina speaks out against the veil as a metaphor for covering up women’s identities. Mahwish and Eli see it differently; Mahwish views the veil as a purifying garment and Eli defends the women at his mosque who wear it proudly. Muslim women can be found on both sides of this heated debate around their choice to wear the veil.

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WIth this lobby display for MTC, patrons learned about seven forms the veil takes, read arguments by Muslim women for and against the veil, and followed QR codes to two TEDx-talks on the subject. Novelist and activist Samina Ali discusses the definitions and connotations of the word “hijab” and her view on how the Qur’an prescribes women’s dress. Medical students Narjes Jaafar and Sally Beydoun discuss their own histories with the veil and why one woman chose to wear it and one chose not to.