Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writer Award Lecture
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet Abdallah and Ahmed: Musings about Arabs and Muslims in American Theater
Thurs. Nov. 8, 2018 7–9 p.m.
Kane Hall 210
Reception in the Walker-Ames Room follows immediately after the talk.
Playwright Yussef El Guindi was selected as the recipient of the 2018 Maxine Cushing Gray Visiting Writers Fellowship Award, honoring a Northwest writer of notable achievement. El Guindi’s award-winning productions include “The Talented Ones,” “Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat” and “An Evening with Activists.” He is the recipient of the 2010 Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award and The Stranger’s Genius Award for literature in 2015.
About the Speaker
Yussef El Guindi’s productions include “The Talented Ones” at Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland (Santa Barbara Independent Indy Award); “Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat” at Golden Thread Productions (American Theatre Critics Association’s M. Elizabeth Osborn Award); “An Evening with Activists” at Cutting Ball Theater; “Collaborator” at Macha Monkey Productions; “Threesome” at Portland Center Stage, ACT, and at 59E59 (Portland Drammy for Best Original Script); “The Ramayana” (co-adaptor with Stephanie Timm) at ACT; “Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World” (winner of the Steinberg/ American Theater Critics Association’s New Play Award in 2012;Gregory Award 2011;) also at ACT, and at Center Repertory Company (Walnut Creek, CA); and “Language Rooms” (Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, as well as ACT’s New Play Award), co-produced by Golden Thread Productions and Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco; at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia (premiere), and at the Los Angeles Theater Center. Other past productions: “Jihad Jones and The Kalashnikov Babes,” produced at Golden Thread Productions, at InterAct Theater, and at Kitchen Dog theater, as part of the National New Play Network.
His plays, “Back of the Throat” (winner of L.A. Weekly’s Excellence in Playwriting Award for 2006), as well as “Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World,” “Jihad Jones and The Kalashnikov Babes,” “Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda’s” and “Karima’s City” have been published by Dramatists Play Service. The latter one-acts have also been included in The Best American Short Plays: 2004-2005, published by Applause Books. “Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith,” “Collaborator,” “Threesome” and “The Talented Ones” have been published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. “Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat” is included in the anthology “Four Arab American Plays,” published by McFarland Books. “Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World” was included in the September, 2012 issue of American Theatre Magazine. And “Language Rooms” was published in Rain City Projects’ anthology “Manifesto Series Volume 3.” A collection of selected works will be published by Bloomsbury/ Methuen Drama in England in 2019. Yussef is the recipient of the 2010 Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award, and Seattle’s 2015 Stranger’s Genius Award. He holds an MFA from Carnegie-Mellon University and was playwright-in-residence at Duke University.
About the Maxine Cushing Gray Lecture: The Maxine Cushing Gray Award was established in 1985 at The Seattle Foundation by friends and admirers of the late Maxine Cushing Gray, who sought to honor her contributions to journalism and her tireless work to recognize and encourage excellence in writing. In 2004, the award fund was moved to the UW Libraries. The event is presented in partnership with the UW Alumni Association and is supported by The Maxine Cushing Gray Endowed Libraries Visiting Writers Fellowship.
