Media Archive

The characters talk about moving forward, but instead go backward, a contradiction Greenidge compares to the 2016 election and the pundits basically Monday morning quarterbacking, asking, “How did we get here?”…Around the same time, Greenidge “began to really get interested in democracy and the different spaces we occupy, in our homes, but also at work and the spaces we choose to occupy that keep our lives running—local governments, church groups,” she says.

“The play is really a microcosm of how oftentimes those of us in the progressive corner of the world may think we’re always doing the right thing,” [Playwright Kirsten] Greenidge says, “but we tend to live our lives without a lot of deep introspection about how we can make choices geared towards the greater good of those around us.” Issues of race, class, and gender play out in sometimes surprising ways in the play. “The people who have money and influence and power are perhaps not the people you expect.”

The new musical tells how one person, then another, word of mouth ignited the 2011 uprising that deposed Mubarak. The play blends real news footage [such as] the sounds of cheering protesters in Tahrir Square with musical recreations onstage.

“At first, I wanted to figure out how accurate is this play about Egypt. Then I figured out we’re still trying to figure out what happened in Egypt. There is no truth, there is no consensus. If this play becomes even half as popular as Hamilton or Rent, it could have a considerable influence on the way people think about what happened during the Arab Spring, and then, why it went so wrong.”

In the wake of the February announcement of a $100-million gift that would anchor creation of a new facility for the Harvard-affiliated American Repertory Theater (ART) in Allston, the selection of the architect for the project was disclosed today.

The American Repertory Theater has hired British architecture firm Haworth Tompkins to design the new theater it’s planning on Harvard University’s Allston campus.

“Celebration and resistance…are communal acts. The act of the revolution, all these people coming together to resist, or to overthrow, and then coming together to celebrate.”