LEGENDS OF TOMORROW'S Tala Ashe Joins Noor Theatre's 48 Hour Forum

Noor Theatre announces initial casting for its 4th annual 48 Hour Forum. The diverse roster of actors will each be randomly assigned to a playwright and director during the event. Joining Tala Ashe ("Legends of Tomorrow," "Smash") are Nikki Massoud ("Succession," "Mozart in the Jungle"), Marjan Neshat ("Quantico"), Dan Domingues ("The Blacklist"), May Calamawy ("The Long Road Home," "Madam Secretary"), Amel Khalil (There is a Field), Thomas Muccioli (The Trojan Women), Kesav Wable (Lily in the Grinder), Sharina Martin (Manhood), Leta Renée-Alan (The Place We Built), Cleo Gray (#serials@theflea), J.D. Goldblatt (Les Misérables), Isra Elsalihie (The Good Man), Veracity Butcher (Benghazi Bergen-Belsen), Wesley T. Jones ("Seven Seconds"), and Grace Canahuati ("Celebrity Ghost Stories").

Playwright Aeneas Hemphill (Black Hollow) and directors Kholoud Sawaf (Vietgone) and Jessica Blank (Liberty City) join the previously announced playwrights Amina Henry (Ducklings, The Animals), Sevan K. Greene (This Time), Michele Lowe (Sundance Institute Theatre Lab Artist-in-Residence), and Melisa Tien (Yellow Card Red Card), and directors Ralph Peña (Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company) and Ed Sylvanus Iskandar (The Mysteries, These Seven Sicknesses) for Noor Theatre's 4th Annual 48 Hour Forum, a 48-hour play festival inspired by news events of the day.

This unique event will take place at The Lark Theatre, 311 W. 43rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenue (A,C,E to 42nd St.). Performances are Monday, May 21st at 8pm and Tuesday, May 22nd at 7pm ($30), and reprised on Wednesday, May 23rd at 7pm as a benefit performance and reception ($100) for this vibrant and necessary theatre company. Tickets may be purchased from www.noortheatre.org.

Noor Theatre is New York's only theatre representing voices of the Middle Eastern diaspora. They are often asked to respond to the barrage of news related to the Middle East and beyond. Often, news breaks and it is several years before we see something on stage about it. Such is the nature of theatre making.

In response, Noor created 48 Hour Forum, where a diverse roster of artists rise to the challenge of spinning our most talked about news events into humorous, incisive "theatrical op-eds." Five playwrights, five directors, and a company of New York's hottest actors gather over 48 hours in a race to create theater as fast as a news cycle.

Past participants include playwrights Marcus Gardley (The House That Will Not Stand), Keith Josef Adkins (Artistic Director of The New Black Fest) and Mona Mansour (The Way West, Labyrinth, and Whiting Award winner, 2012); director Shana Gold (Food and Fadwa Noor/New York Theatre Workshop); and actors Russell G. Jones (Obie winner for Ruined, Manhattan Theater Club) and Nadine Malouf (The Who and The What, Lincoln Center).

The creation of this work was made possible in part by funding from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.