ABSTRACT
I directed my first play in Egypt in 1993. Since then, I have directed fifteen plays in Egypt, England, and the US. I often adapted or rewrote the dramaturgy of the texts I worked on, but I did not write my own play until 2009. My first play, Solitaire, was awarded a production grant from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture in 2010. I was in rehearsals for this production in January 2011 when the Egyptian revolution took place and altered our reality. I stopped rehearsals and participated in the revolution. When I went back to Solitaire, so much had changed, so the performance, as a living thing, had to change. I wrote a new section about the revolution that fit perfectly well with the theme of the Egyptian American woman dealing with the aftermath of 9/11 and growing her political awareness. This multimedia performance had visuals from demonstrations in New York in addition to footages and images from demonstrations in Cairo. I felt obliged to perform it myself, as I carry the visceral memory of these unique moments that I personally experienced. The performance opened in Cairo in March 2011, then toured in Iraq, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Germany, Ethiopia, in addition to three tours in the US in 2011, 2012, and 2014.
