New Arab American Theater Works

National and local MENA artists, community members, and arts organizers gathered in Minneapolis for an exciting meet and greet with theatrical readings by MENA theater makers. The event was a part of our 2025 MENA Theater Makers Alliance Retreat.

On the 76th anniversary of Al-Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, our community gathered for an evening of poetry by local BIPOC writers in solidarity with Palestine. 

The Gaza Monologues are testimonies written by ASHTAR youth in 2010, after the first war on the Gaza Strip. Tragically, these monologues are still accurate today. They are highlighting the horrors, hopes, and resilience of the courageous Gazans to a wider audience, bringing out the voices of children and people in Gaza.​

Conscience Café is about a Somali café owner whose indignation about Palestinian plight leads him to attempt to awaken grassroots’ awareness for their cause. But his effort is constrained by another crisis: that of his homeland Somalia and a colleague of his who thinks that his priority is misplaced as well as a world that fails to stand with the Palestinians. He is pained by the curse of collective punishment that takes place on Palestine on a regular basis, specifically housing demolitions.

Ladan follows a young Somali girl grappling with her identity and coming of age following the passage of her mother. Ladan is exploring her place in society and discovering the ways in which her mother's teachings live on.

Fatima, Layla, Farah, and Salima are living their best twenty-somethings lives in Michigan, other than all the secrets that they’re keeping from each other and their families. Secrets like: a secret girlfriend, a secret fiancé, being too conservative, being too liberal, and literally being in the closet (figuratively of course). This hilarious and heartfelt romp will leave you laughing, crying, and even praying!

Seema wakes up and doesn’t recognize anything. There are locks on the doors and there’s no way out. Where is she? Who are these strangers keeping her here? Why doesn’t she understand them? As the play unfolds we learn how Seema has become a prisoner in her own life.

There’s no stopping the commodity food fetishism of the world’s largest fast food chain. But how do you negotiate the Westernization of an identity with the feeding of the hungry?

Rosette follows a 16 year old Palestinian Christian woman as she is discovering her identity as a Palestinian refugee living in the city of Haifa; and as she grapples with loss of home post-1948, family separation, and gender in Palestinian society. Rosette is a coming of age story of survival, resilience and resistance. Living in Haifa with what is left of her family, Rosette is questioning her place in her family and society in a post-Nakba Palestine, and daring to dream about her future.

After protesting a Zionist group’s “Birthright Israel Trip”--a free trip to Israel for Jewish students–Aida Shalabi and her university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter are suspended and smeared for alleged anti-semitism. But this semester, SJP returns from suspension, and now they’re seeking to return somewhere else–to organize the first ever Birthright Palestine trip. Birthright Palestine follows a group of Palestinian-American students on a quest to return to their precious homeland, against an extensive Zionist campaign to keep them away.

It is 2019 and Diyala just moved from Syria to Williamsburg, Virginia on a student visa. It is also 1619 and Agnes just married the Lord of the Virginia Company in Jamestown, who happens to be sleeping with a Native American man. Agnes and Diyala are worlds apart. Yet, something binds them. Jamestown/ Williamsburg tells the story of the voyages and traumas of two immigrant women.

The Hour of Separation is a three-part play exploring one family's Lebanese immigration story over the past 100 years.

Sabra Falling begins in August 1982 and Beirut is under siege. In the Sabra refugee camp the specter of a massacre looms, and the Akawi family receives an unexpected and mysterious visitor who brings the past rushing back - and alters the course of events to come. 

Zafira the Olive Oil Warrior tells the story of Arab American school teacher sent to an internment camp along with other Arab and Muslim women. The play envisions a not so far-fetched future in which Arabs and Muslims are officially enemies of the state.