Sarah Dahnke

General Manager

Sarah Dahnke is an Arab-American arts leader, choreographer, and educator whose work bridges creative practice, institutional leadership, and community-centered cultural work. In addition to serving as the General Manager at MENATMA, she is also a Lecturer at New York University, where she teaches courses in narrative design, drawing on interdisciplinary approaches that span performance, media, and storytelling. Previously, she served as Residency Director at chashama, overseeing large-scale artist residency programs and partnerships across New York City. She has also worked as a digital archivist for Marina Abramović, contributing to the preservation and organization of major performance art archives.

As an artist, Sarah’s creative practice centers on devised performance and dance film, with work presented by organizations including BRIC, the Dance Films Association, Movies By Movers, and the Tiny Dance Film Festival. Her work has been supported by the MAP Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts (Our Town), and fellowships from Gibney, Target Margin Institute, New Victory LabWorks, and Culture Push. She was recently an artist-in-residence at the Arab American National Museum.

Sarah is the founder and artistic director of Dances for Solidarity, a long-term project that co-creates choreography with people impacted by the criminal legal system as a form of public advocacy and collective storytelling. She is also a company member of New York-based Colt Coeur and was the second-ever recipient of the Crane Directing Fellowship at Opera Columbus.

Andrea Assaf

ArtAction, Inc.

Tampa, FL

ANDREA ASSAF is a writer, performer, director and cultural organizer. She’s the founding Artistic and Executive Director of Art2Action, Inc., and a founding Co-Director of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation (in partnership with Pangea World Theater). Andrea’s seminal work, Eleven Reflections on September, has toured to venues such as The Kennedy Center, La MaMa, The Apollo, OSF as part of the 2016 National Asian American Theatre Festival, and more; during the pandemic, it was re-created as an award-winning digital film; and now continues as a multi-city, community co-created national series, Eleven Reflections on the Nation. Her new play DRONE (in development) received a 2019 NEFA National Theatre Project award, and was co-commissioned by the Arab American National Museum, Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) New Orleans, and the National Performance Network (NPN). Andrea is a former Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater (2004-09), and former Program Associate for Animating Democracy (2001-04). She has a Masters degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in acting, both from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is a founding Board member of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA), as well as the MENA Theatre-Makers Alliance (MENATMA), and is a voting board member of Alternate ROOTS. Visit art2action.org.

Sherrine Azab

A Host of People

Detroit, MI

SHERRINE AZAB is the Co-Director of the Detroit-based theater ensemble A Host of People. She is a theater maker and director focused on the creation of new works, as well as a producer and educator who has worked nationally and internationally in cities such as Detroit, Seattle, New York, Berlin, and more. Sherrine holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and a postgraduate certificate from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University. She was a member of the 2008 Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, a 2017-18 UMS Artist in Residence, and a 2018 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow. In addition to numerous directing credits with A Host of People and other theaters, she has also worked with the Arab American National Museum, New Arab American Theater Works, Wayne State University, The Foundry Theatre (NYC), the Network of Ensemble Theaters, Ping Chong + Co (NYC), as well as Target Margin Theater (NYC) of which she is a proud Associate Artist. Woven into her artistic/theater life is ongoing training in subjects intersecting and supporting art for social change, such as Emergent Strategy Immersion Training and Restorative Practice intensives. She is also a TimeSlips Certified Facilitator.

Amal Bisharat

Independent Artist

Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA

AMAL BISHARAT (she/her) is a Palestinian-American multidisciplinary artist- a theater director, producer, writer, musician, actor and photographer based in Los Angeles and San Francisco. She is Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Meem Collective, currently developing Mornings in Jenin Musical, a Palestinian refugee story adapted from the best-selling novel Mornings in Jenin by susan abulhawa. Bisharat holds a BA in Music and Theater and, for 12 years, worked as a theater director and music director in partnership with the San Francisco Unified School District. In 2023, as Artist-in-Residence with Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, she co-produced and directed their signature program ReOrient Festival of Short Plays (2023), and directed an online reading of The Gaza Monologues by Ashtar Theatre-Palestine (2023). Bisharat is a current member of the board of MENA Theater Makers Alliance and served on the Community Council for Golden Thread’s 2024 Season for Palestine. She is grateful to have received support for her work from the following organizations: San Francisco Arts Commission Artist Grant (2023), Theater Bay Area CA$H Creates Grant (2022), TBA Arts Leadership Residency Grant (2023), Investing in Artists: Artistic Innovation CCI (2024), Zoo Labs: FUND (2024), Doria Feminist Fund (2025). Bisharat believes in the transformative power of art and storytelling whether on a stage, in a photograph, or in the stories we tell ourselves.

Raymond Bobgan

Cleveland Public Theatre

Cleveland, OH

RAYMOND BOBGAN is in his 20th season as Executive Artistic Director of Cleveland Public Theatre. Raymond has produced 79 world premiere full productions and countless workshop productions, a majority of which are by women and artists who are BIPOC. As an artist, Raymond creates new performances that are bold, multilayered, and highly physical through an ever-evolving ensemble process. Raymond’s work has been seen in Romania, Brazil, Denmark, Serbia, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Canada. Raymond founded STEP which employs teenagers to devise and perform an original play and co-founded the Y-Haven Theatre Project engaging formerly unhoused adults, in addiction recovery, in creating and performing plays. He initiated Teatro Público de Cleveland, CPT’s Latine group, and Masrah Cleveland Al-Arabi, by, for, and with Arabic-speaking communities. Raymond has received the Cleveland Cisgender Ally Award and Equality Ohio’s Ally Award. Raymond is a recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Artist Fellowship, The TCG/Pew Artist Residency, Cleveland Arts Prize, and The Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio.. Raymond was President of the NNPN Board 2018-2020 and served on the board of TCG. During Raymond’s tenure, CPT has eliminated significant debt, tripled in scale, and completed a $7.5 Million capital campaign.

Tracy Cameron Francis

Boom Arts

Portland, OR

TRACY CAMERON FRANCIS is a first-generation Egyptian-American director, producer, deviser, dramaturg, and educator. She is the Artistic Director of Boom Arts in Portland, OR. Her work has been seen in the U.S., Egypt, Rwanda, and Italy. Francis is a core member of Theatre Without Borders, where she has helped organize two international theater conferences at LaMama. She was the co-founder and artistic of Hybrid Theatre Works in New York City, which focused on international collaboration and social justice. She holds a B.A. from Fordham University in Middle Eastern Studies and Theatre, is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and an associate member of SDC.

Debórah Eliezer

Aviva Arts

San Francisco, CA/Central Portugal

DEBÓRAH ELIEZER (she/her) is an Arab Jewish artist, activist, coach, and California wildfire survivor. Passionate about the power of human transformation, her work focuses on using embodied skills to disrupt assumptions about art, belonging and society. She is the Artistic Director of Aviva Arts, an Associate Artist with Golden Thread, a Mitsui Collective Somatic Leadership Fellow, artEquity arts facilitator alumna, and has proudly served on the inaugural MENATMA board since 2019. Eliezer has devised numerous world premieres and toured internationally, including writing and performing (dis)Place[d] about Iraqi Jews. As the former foolsFURY Co-Artistic Director, she produced the FURY Factory Festival of Ensemble Theater in SF for 13 years and BUILD digital convenings. Eliezer holds a B.A. Cum Laude in Drama from SFSU, is a certified Sound Healing practitioner from CIIS, and a certified Yoga instructor. She lives between San Francisco and Central Portugal, where she runs Valada Viva, an international artist retreat center. avivaarts.org

Kathryn Haddad

New Arab American Theater Works

Minneapolis, MN

KATHRYN HADDAD is a writer, teacher, and community organizer. She serves as the Executive and Artistic Director of New Arab American Theater Works and was a founder of Mizna, one of the few Arab American Arts and literary organizations in the United States, where she served as Artistic and Executive Director for 12 years. She is a 2004–05 recipient of an Archibald Bush Leadership Fellowship for her work with the Arab American community. As a writer, she received three Playwright’s Center Many Voices Fellowships, as well as awards from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Intermedia Arts. She is a recipient of the 2018 Kay Sexton Award from the Minnesota Book Awards for her work with the Arab American Community, was a 2019-20 Jerome Artist Fellow in Playwriting, a 2022-23 McKnight Culture Bearer Fellow, and a recipient of a Minnesota “50 Over 50 Award” in 2022. She has had work published in several anthologies, and speaks locally and nationally.

Denmo Ibrahim

Independent Artist

Brooklyn, NY

DENMO IBRAHIM is an Egyptian-American actor, writer, and advocate. She’s a Sundance Theater Lab Finalist and a recipient of The Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Her creative work is generously supported by Zellerbach Family Foundation, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and Theatre Bay Area. Denmo holds an MFA in Lecoq-based Actor Created Physical Theater from Naropa University and a BFA in Acting from Boston University. She is a founding artistic director of Mugwumpin, a resident artist of Golden Thread, and serves on the board of directors at Marin Theatre Company. She lives between San Francisco and Brooklyn.

Kate Moore Heaney

Noor Theatre

New York, NY

KATE MOORE HEANEY is a theatre director, producer, and dramaturg. Kate is the Associate Producer at Long Wharf Theatre, Artistic Producer of Noor Theatre, and a founding steering committee member for the Middle Eastern and North African Theater Makers Alliance (MENATMA). She has directed and/or developed new work with The Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, The Playwrights Realm, The Civilians’ R&D Group, New York Theatre Workshop, The Amoralists, The Flea, The Shakespeare Society, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, and other NYC companies. She has assistant or associate directed with Ibex Theatricals/The New Vic, McCarter Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, Yale Institute for Music Theatre, and The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway. B.A.: Yale. katemooreheaney.com

Malek Najjar

University of Oregon

Eugene, OR

MALEK NAJJAR is Full Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Oregon, USA with a specialization/ concentration in Arab American and Middle Eastern American Theatre forms. He is the author of Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures and Artists and Arab American Drama, Film and Performance, 1908 to the Present. He is the editor of Heather Raffo’s Iraq Plays: The Things That Can’t Be Said, The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi, Four Arab American Plays: Works by Leila Buck, Jamil Khoury, Yussef El Guindi, and Lameece Issaq & Jacob Kader and co-editor of Until I Return: The Selected Plays of Ismail Khalidi, The Vagrant Trilogy: Three Plays by Mona Mansour, and Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He is on the advisory board of Arab Stages, and directed mainstage productions with Silk Road Rising, Golden Thread Productions, and New Arab American Theatre Works.

Evren Odcikin

Independent Artist

New York, NY and San Francisco, CA

EVREN ODCIKIN (he/him) is a Turkish-American director, writer, and arts leader based in New York City and San Francisco. He is a celebrated champion of historically-excluded voices in the American theater through work that is heart-centered, politically engaged, globally minded, and centers joy as resistance. He is committed to building his work with and for the communities it represents. Evren is the proud 2024-25 Artist in Residence at Golden Thread Productions and a 2025 Iris Lab Fellow with UC Santa Cruz. As a director, he’s worked at Soho Rep, NYTW, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre, Profile Theatre, Northern Stage, Woolly Mammoth, PlayCo, A.R.T., Guthrie, Geva, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, InterAct, Playwrights Foundation, Marin Shakes, and Magic Theatre amongst many others. As a playwright and translator, his works have been commissioned, developed, and produced by Cal Shakes, NYU Abu Dhabi, Golden Thread and Crowded Fire, and Custom Made. In 2023, he served as the Interim Artistic Director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he was the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming for five seasons. Evren is a founding board member of Middle Eastern North African Theater Makers Alliance. odcikin.com

Nabra Nelson

Golden Thread Productions

Oakland, CA

NABRA NELSON is a theatre artist from Egypt, Nubia, and California. She is the new Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, the country’s first theater company devoted to the Middle East. As a playwright, director, dramaturg, consultant, administrator, and teaching artist, she works with theaters, universities, and community organizations across the nation to strengthen community and amplify under-heard voices. She is a founding company member of the Seattle-based MENA theater company, Dunya Productions, a founding company member of the Milwaukee-based womxn-of-color performance troupe Heard Space Arts Collective, leads the Nubian Foundation for Preserving a Cultural Heritage, and is the co-host of the Kunafa & Shay Theater Podcast (produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons). Her plays have been produced and developed in Seattle, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Minneapolis. She is a Dramatists Guild’s 2024-25 National Playwriting Fellow, and a member of Dramatic Question Theater’s Classics In Color Cohort, Moving Arts’ MADlab Playwright Cohort and the Playwright Circle @ Speranza Theatre Company. As an independent scholar, she has been published by Routledge, Bloomsbury, the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal, and The Gemsbok. She was previously the Director of Arts Engagement at Seattle Rep, and the Community Engagement Associate at Milwaukee Rep.

Torange Yeghiazarian

Independent Artist

Oakland, CA

TORANGE YEGHIAZARIAN is an award-winning playwright and director passionate about building community through theater. Her artistic practice reflects her values of radical hospitality and inclusiveness aimed at disrupting stereotypes of the Middle East both within the community and outside of it. A transplant from the 1979 Iranian revolution, Torange believes that life is inherently political and that the personal and the global are inseparable. Her plays frequently explore the cultural divide with tenderness and humor from an immigrant woman’s perspective. As a director, Torange’s focus has been on new plays, experimenting with Middle Eastern performance traditions, and staging poetry. Dubbed the “Margo Jones–founding-mother-figure of Middle Eastern–American theatre”, Torange founded Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East, and served as its Executive Artistic Director for 25 years. There, she created visionary programs such as ReOrient Festival of Short Plays, premiered hundreds of plays, and launched the careers of countless artists. A recipient of the Gerbode Playwright Commission Award, Torange’s plays are published in New Iranian Plays, Performing Iran, and Salaam.Peace Anthology of Middle Eastern American Drama. Torange was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cairo International Festival.