This Is Who I Am

Evren Odcikin is a theater director, writer, and arts administrator with a deep commitment to bringing underrepresented stories and voices to the American stage. He serves as the Associate Artistic Director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and is a founding member of the MENA Theater Maker Alliance steering committee, a founder of Maia Directors, and a resident artist at Golden Thread Productions. A celebrated new plays director, he has worked with NYTW, Geva, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, The Lark, Kennedy Center, InterAct (Philadelphia), Cleveland Public Theatre, Magic Theatre, Golden Thread, and Crowded Fire. As a writer, he is under commission with Leila Buck to create 1001 Nights (A Retelling) for Cal Shakes. Recognitions include: a 2016 “Theatre Worker You Should Know” feature in American Theatre Magazine; a 2015 National Director’s Fellowship from the O’Neill, NNPN, the Kennedy Center, and SDCF; and a 2013 TITAN Award from Theatre Bay Area.

Amir Nizar Zuabi is an award-winning theater writer and director, the Artistic Director of ShiberHur, and served as Associate Director of Young Vic London (2009 – 2017). Zuabi is also a member of Union of Theatres of Europe (UTE) for artistic achievement, an artistic advisor for the Palestinian National Theatre, and an alumni of Sundance Theatre Lab. Writing and directing credits include: I Am Yusuf and This Is My Brother, In the Penal Colony, Alive From Palestine, Oh My Sweet Land (PlayCo NYC, Young Vic/Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne); The Beloved (co-produced by ShiberHur/Young Vic); Three Days of Grief, West of Us the Sea, Mid Spring Musical, Asmahan, and Grey Rock. He also created three full-length dance pieces with collaborator Samar Haddad King: Dry Mud, Against A Hard Surface, and Last Ward. Directing credits include: Samson and Delilah (Flanders Opera, Antwerp); Jidarriya by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (Edinburgh International Festival, Bouffes du Nord and World Tour); Forget Herostratus, Le Mallade Imaginer, War or More, Sneeze, Deep Sorrow, Fall Tale, When The World Was Green, Lanterns Of The King Of Galilee, Taha the Publisher. Zuabi was the first Middle Eastern director to be asked to direct for the Royal Shakespeare Company where he directed The Comedy of Errors. Recently Zuabi has created Grey Rock for La Mama, New York (currently on tour), is writing new plays for the Riksteren in Stockholm and the prestigious National Theatre London, and was recently appointed Artistic Director of a cross-border cultural festival produced by Good Chance Theatre (Stephen Daldrey, Tracey Seaward, and David lan).

Off-Broadway: I Thought I Would Die But I Didn’t (The Tank); Eh Dah? Questions for My Father (Hypokrit Theatre/NYTW Next Door); The Russian and The Jew (Anna & Kitty Inc./The Tank); Dead Are My People (Noor Theatre/NYTW Next Door); Field Awakening (Corkscrew Festival); Alternating Currents (The Working Theater). Other theater: P*ssyC*ck Know Nothing, News Of The Strange, Marjana and the Forty Thieves, Pay No Attention to The Girl (Target Margin Theater). Regional: 9 Parts of Desire (Portland Center Stage); King Lear (Northern Stage); Noura (The Guthrie); Noura (The Old Globe); Yasmina’s Necklace (Premiere Stages); Selling Kabul (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Pay No Attention to The Girl (Target Margin Theater/Spoleto Festival); We’ve Come to Believe, The Corpse Washer, How to Defend Yourself (Actors Theatre of Louisville/43rd Humana Festival); Heartland (Geva Theatre Center). Film: Roommates (Short); Keiko’s Hands (Short); Jihadi Street (Short); Shift (Short); Prisoners of War (Short). JS Seidman Award.

James Ard is honored to be making his Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company debut. Recent Sound Design credits include: Our Country (Incoming! series at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival); and 9 Parts of Desire (Portland Center Stage). San Francisco Bay Area Sound Design credits include: Exit Strategy, Actually, Dry Powder, The Royale (Aurora Theatre Company); Utopia, Free For All, La Ronde (Cutting Ball Theater); and Beyond the Wound is a Portal (Stanford Department of Theater & Performance Studies). James Ard is a Resident Artist with both Crowded Fire Theater and Golden Thread Productions.

Mariana Sanchez is a scenic designer with a background in architecture originally from Mexico, based in the New York area. Some of her credits include: Anatomy of a Suicide (The Atlantic Theater); Marys Seacole (LTC3); Fade (Primary Stages); Troy, Winter’s Tale (The Public); Frontieres Sans Frontieres (Bushwick Starr); Oh My Sweet Land (Play Company). Regional: Manahatta, War (Yale Repertory); The Copper Children, Manahatta, The River Bride, All’s Well That Ends Well (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Mojada (St. Louis Rep); The Niceties (Geva Theatre); Fetch Clay, Make Man (Dallas Theater Center); Skeleton Crew (Baltimore Center Stage); The Wolves, Fade (TheaterWorks); Peter Pan (Yale University) among others. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and B. Arch. from National Autonomous University in Mexico City.

Joseph Haj is the Artistic Director of the Guthrie Theater (2015 – present) where he has directed Dickens’ Holiday Classic (for film), The Glass Menagerie, West Side Story, Cyrano de Bergerac (his own adaptation), Romeo and Juliet, Sunday in the Park with George, King Lear, South Pacific, and Pericles. Other directing credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V, Pericles (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); The Tempest, Metamorphoses, Cabaret, Henry IV Part I and Part II, Henry V, Nicholas Nickleby, The Illusion, Amadeus, Pericles, Big River, As You Like It, Cyrano de Bergerac, Into the Woods (PlayMakers Repertory Company, as Producing Artistic Director 2006 – 2015); Hamlet, Pericles (Folger Theatre). Haj has also directed projects in rural South Carolina, the West Bank, and Gaza. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Reza Bejat is a NYC-based lighting designer who was born and raised in Iran, where he worked with some of the most prominent directors for several years. Reza received the Knight of Illumination Award for Nina Simone: Four Women in 2019. Off-Broadway: Disclaimer (Public Theater’s UTR), Veil Widow Conspiracy, Henry VI, Hamlet. Regional and others: Gianni Schicchi (Michigan Opera Theatre); Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally (Baltimore Center Stage); Noura (Guthrie Theater); Queen (Geva Theatre); Native Son (PlayMakers Rep); Everybody Black, The This Place (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Nina Simone: Four Women (Alabama Shakes); The Roommate (Long Wharf Theatre); Guards at the Taj (Central Square Theater); Notes of the Strange, Yogibogeybox (Target Margin); Waiting For Godot (New Yiddish Rep); Dead Are My People (Noor Theatre); Whore from Ohio, Labor of Life (New Yiddish Rep); This Is The Color (New Georges); Fillx7 (The Flea Theater).

Rachael Danielle Albert (she/her) is thrilled to return to Woolly Mammoth, after having stage-managed Botticelli in the Fire (2018), Describe the Night (2019), and Fairview (2019). Regional: Dear Jack, Dear Louise, Junk, Native Gardens, A Raisin in the Sun, Watch on the Rhine, The City of Conversation (Arena Stage); Bright Star, She A Gem (Kennedy Center); The Wolves (Studio Theatre); Seize the King, Up Here, Ether Dome (La Jolla Playhouse); The Odd Couple, Sylvia, Souvenir (New London Barn Playhouse); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Stage 773). Founding member: Oakland Theater Project (California). MFA: University of California, San Diego. BFA: University of Michigan. Proud AEA member.