Center on Halsted’s actOUT program featured “out” playwright Jamil Khoury and “out” director Steve Scott from Silk Road Theatre Project to discuss the world premier of The DNA Trail: A Genealogy of Short Plays about Ancestry, Identity, and Utter Confusion.
Read MoreThe combustive combination of identity politics and science leads several playwrights toward pedagogy, though it’s largely tongue-in-cheek... It proves that the solitary act of self-examination can, indeed, be made to entertain.
Read More[On] the whole it's a smart and challenging production, directed with clarity by Steve Scott, that focuses far less than one might expect on identity politics. At its best, it's a poignant meditation on how difficult it is to recognize the impact of our immediate families, much less whatever came down to us through the double helix of history.
Read MoreFunny, poignant, absurd, and thought-provoking; The DNA Trail highlights the work of gifted playwrights and represents a shining example of Silk Road Theatre Project’s dedication to presenting diverse perspectives through the creation of extraordinary theater. Don’t miss this wonderfully entertaining ride through genetic coding, self-examination and human interaction.
Read MoreEven the theater space evokes the feelings of twoness that come from inheriting mixed ancestry and culture; located in the basement of The First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple Building, the audience sits in the bowels of a mixed-use building whose original purpose was to observe faith. There is more than one story to the building, and more than one story to each piece of The DNA Trail.
Read MoreThe production, smartly directed by Steve Scott and performed by seven deftly morphing actors, also is a handsome, quirky, frequently moving, thought-provoking exploration that considers its subject in myriad ways while taking some wildly unexpected detours.
Read MoreWATCH: An Interview with Jamil Khoury, author of "WASP: White Arab Slovak Pole", one of seven plays featured in Silk Road Theatre's "The DNA Trail.
Read MoreJamil Khoury’s idea for a series of short plays centering on the genealogical DNA test has produced an intriguing evening of theatre. The seven plays contain humor, fantasy, personal revelation and poignancy.
Read MoreTheatre meets science when a diverse group of playwrights each agree to take a genealogical DNA test and revisit their assumptions about identity, politics, and the perennial "who am I" question. Self, family, community, and ethnicity are all up for grabs.
Read MoreProduced in association with Critical Encounters, a program of Columbia College Chicago this event allowed patrons to meet and hear from the playwrights of Silk Road Theatre Project's production of The DNA Trail.
Read MoreThere are times when staff members at Silk Road Theatre Project might look askance at Malik Gillani, the company's executive director. Sure, he's a founder of the Chicago theater company, but he's really a businessman who loves the arts.
Mr. Gillani recently finished a certificate program at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. His focus was non-profit management.
Read MoreBased on his name, 44-year-old Chicago playwright Jamil Khoury says that people expect him to be African-American or “stereotypically” Middle Eastern.
Read MoreThis award recognizes Yussef El Guindi’s play, Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat, which premiered in March 2008 at Silk Road Theatre Project in Chicago.
Read MoreEach of the seven writers approached these questions in different ways. Khoury chose to focus on the sociology and politics of ancestry, a “story about the tensions of New America for a city filled with New Americans,” while fellow writer Elizabeth Wong infused her experience with humor... Both writers found that the source material encouraged divergent themes. Creating art out of science proved not a hindrance, but fertile imaginative grounds with more overlap than expected.
Read MoreFeaturing a lineup of Broadway tunes about the Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean experience, the cabaret is based on a winking irony that nearly all these musicals were written by Americans and Brits, many in an "exoticized, Orientalized, otherized" vein.
Read MoreIt is a very charming way to spend a 70-minute evening listening to songs from popular Broadway shows that are set in locations along the ancient Silk Road and sung by a talented multi-cultural cast.
Read MoreJamil Khoury has put together a marvelous song book with lots of surprises and with the cast they have on board, each song has the true feeling that an audience would expect from the lyrics and music as written by the composer.
Read MoreCurated by Jamil Khoury, this revue looks at how Broadway and Tin Pan Alley have portrayed cultures along the ancient trade route from Japan to the Mediterranean. The sly and thoughtful assortment of songs ranges from South Pacific's "Carefully Taught" to a delightful "Slow Boat to China," and the mostly Asian cast add personal reminiscences that tend to focus on what it's like to be a second-generation actor with skeptical immigrant parents. The stories are touching, if repetitive, and David Rhee's how-I-got-that-show tale about landing a part in the Broadway company of Thoroughly Modern Millie segues nicely into "Stranger in Paradise" from Kismet. The intimate cabaret setting and ingratiating performances add up to a pleasant journey through novel musical territory.
Read More[The show] is quietly provocative. And as you listen to its two dozen mostly well-known songs-whose stage locales span the thousands of miles of the ancient Silk Road terrain from Japan and China to Italy- you begin to hear them in new ways.
Read MoreThe revue is both playful and ironic in its depiction of Silk Road persona... Each of the talent stepped up to showcase their vocal chops. The concept works as one of the most refreshing cabaret revues I’ve seen in years.
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