November 30–December 11, 2018
A Workshop Production
Adapted and Directed by Corey Pond
Music Direction by Emma Hospelhorn
Choir Direction by Erik Nussbaum
Christmas Mubarak is a first-of-its-kind musical/theatre interplay of the Quranic and New Testament stories that celebrates the miraculous birth, life, and ascension of Jesus. This festive holiday performance features actors from our Silk Road communities and choir members from the First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple.
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Written by
Translated from (language) by
Adapted by
Directed by
Musical Direction by
Choreography by
The play synopsis goes here. It’s a really great synopsis that we toiled away creating. It totally made people want to see the show. They came out in droves to see what was promised. They weren’t disappointed.
Performed as part of Name of Festival
Read MoreOctober 6–7, 2018
Co-Produced with A-Squared Theatre
Written by Preston Choi
Directed by Brian Balcom
As Louise prepares a TEDx Talk on the Migratory Patterns of the North American Monarch Butterfly, her three sons are on the hunt to find their father so they can avoid being drafted into the Korean army. Part nature documentary, part TED Talk, A Great Migration maps one family's search for identity, unity, and a destination they are reluctant to embrace.
Read MoreAugust 18–19, 2018
Written by Stan Lai
Translated from Chinese by Stan Lai with assistance by Tian Hongyi
Directed by Helen Young
Nightingale’s husband has been missing for nearly two decades. She’s convinced that he was abducted by aliens and will return on the twentieth anniversary of his disappearance. As Nightingale grows increasingly invested in her fantasies, her daughter and colleague grapple with an unsettling possibility: What if her husband doesn’t come back?
Performed as part of Silk Road Rising’s New China Festival: Staged Readings of Plays from the Chinese Speaking World
Read MoreAugust 11–12, 2018
Written by Gao Xingjian
Translated from Chinese by Gilbert C. F. Fong
Directed by Carol Ann Tan
Two strangers find themselves stranded outside of both time and place with only each other for company. Consumed by their personal loneliness, neither is able to truly listen to what the other has to say. Trapped in the existential crisis that follows a hook-up, their frustrations begin leading them down a path of mutual self-destruction.
Performed as part of Silk Road Rising’s New China Festival: Staged Readings of Plays from the Chinese Speaking World
Read MoreAugust 4–5, 2018
Written by Ruoxin Xu
Directed by Helen Young
On the eve of Chinese New Year, Dan is finally returning to China after several years in the U.S. But before the Tang family can celebrate a reunion, they must first confront their national, cultural, and political differences if they are to understand why Dan is really back—and why he immigrated to America in the first place.
Performed as part of Silk Road Rising’s New China Festival: Staged Readings of Plays from the Chinese Speaking World
Read MoreMay 17- 27, 2018
A Workshop Production
Written and Performed by Anu Bhatt
Directed by Barbara Zahora
Anu Bhatt combines the personal with the poetic in her one-woman show about depression, body image, and confronting sexual abuse. Seeking to balance and embrace two identities, Bhatt explores her South Asian American background with courage and insightful humor. A mix of raw memories, lyricism and tough truths, Hollow/Wave is a daring dance for empowerment through a sea of imperfection.
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Read MoreMarch 7–April 15, 2018
The World Premiere
Written by Novid Parsi
Directed by Carin Silkaitis
Having fled Iran where he was imprisoned for being a gay man, a damaged Razi arrives at his sister's doorstep in Chicago only to disrupt the life she and her American husband built together. As the Chicago Cubs vie to make history, rivalries of a different kind simmer in the Uptown two-flat that Razi tries to call home. With echoes of A Streetcar Named Desire, Novid Parsi's world premiere drama probes the boundaries between family, loss, prejudice, and desire.
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Read MoreFebruary 3–4, 2018
Written by Mehdi Moradpour
Translated from German by Neil Blackadder
Directed by Sami Ismat
German Iranian playwright Mehdi Moradpour’s Pure Land, nominated for the Munich Prize for German Drama, traces the story of Tara, a pregnant Middle Eastern woman seeking political asylum amidst crippling bureaucracy and crumbling relationships. Neil Blackadder’s translation captures the poetry that won Moradpour the prestigious exil-DramatikerInnenpreis, a German theatre award for outstanding playwrights-in-exile.
Pure Land pits a torturous past against an uncertain future with sobering effect.
Read MoreJanuary 13–15, 2018
Written by Paco Bezerra, Philip Kan Gotanda, Simona Hamer, Marioan Hosseini, Rachida Lamrabet, Mihaela Michailov, and Csaba Székely
Directed by Kaiser Ahmed and Christine Bunuan
What does privacy mean in the digital age? P3M5 is a groundbreaking transatlantic theater project featuring five-minute plays from internationally renowned playwrights.
Read MoreAugust 2018
Staged readings of three plays translated from Chinese to English that highlight the work of contemporary playwrights from the Chinese speaking world. Stylistically and aesthetically diverse, the featured plays examine a Chinese society rife with tensions between tradition and accelerating change, consumerism and communism, and authoritarianism and personal freedom. New China Festival will also include a panel discussion about the state of theatre in the Chinese speaking world and the insights American audiences can gain from Chinese plays.
Read MoreAugust 6, 2015
Written by Adriana Sevahn Nichols
Directed by Corey Pond
Spanning from the Ottoman Empire to New York City, and three generations of an Armenian and Dominican family, Adriana Sevahn Nichols' Night Over Erzinga explores how a man can lose everything but his heart, and how a grandmother can reach through time, unearth an untold story, and bring her children “home.” From collective tragedy to personal triumph, ancestors reunite with the living in a breathtakingly beautiful journey toward making peace with the past and reclaiming one’s heritage.
Performed as part of Eastern Christians: Commemorating Genocide, Confronting the Future
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