The Old Globe today announced the cast and creative team of the riveting West Coast premiere of Noura by Heather Raffo (the award-winning 9 Parts of Desire, the opera Fallujah), a graduate of The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program. Loosely inspired by Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Noura received the prestigious Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Original New Play and the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award. Directed by Johanna McKeon (Off Broadway's I Have Loved Strangers and Tokio Confidential), Noura begins performances September 20, 2019 and runs through October 20 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run September 20-25. Opening night is Thursday, September 26 at 8:00 p.m. Single tickets on sale now, starting at $30.00, and can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE [234-5623], or at the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.
Noura and her husband are Chaldean Christian refugees from Iraq, celebrating their first Christmas Eve as American citizens. But the long-anticipated visit of an orphan girl they once sponsored, now a promising college student, causes them to question who they've become and what they've left behind. The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout calls this powerful drama "one of the finest new plays I've ever reviewed. Full of unexpected revelations and flashes of sudden, blinding illumination."
The cast includes
Giovanni Cozic as Yazen/Alex (Globe's
Clint Black's Looking for Christmas and Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Up Here at
La Jolla Playhouse), Mattico David as Tareq/Tim (Noura at
Playwrights Horizons and
Shakespeare Theatre Company), Isra Elsalihie as Maryam (member,
LAByrinth Theater Company),
Lameece Issaq as Noura/Nora (Drama Desk Award-winning Stuff Happens, When the Lights Went Out, Food and Fadwa,
The Black Eyed, and The Fever Chart), and
Fajer Kaisi as Rafa'a (Off Broadway's Tennis in Nablus and Aftermath, Troilus and Cressida and Romeo and Juliet at Oregon Shakespeare Festival).
The creative team includes
Andromache Chalfant (Scenic Design),
Dina El-Aziz (Costume Design),
Driscoll Otto (Lighting Design),
Melanie Chen Cole (Sound Design, the Globe's Tiny Beautiful Things and The Imaginary Invalid), Noora Hammi (Cultural Consultant),
Caparelliotis Casting (Casting), and
Jess Slocum (Production Stage Manager).
Heather Raffo (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright and actress whose work has been seen Off Broadway, Off West End, in regional theatre, and in film. She is the author and solo performer of the play 9 Parts of Desire (
Lucille Lortel Award;
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation; Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, and
Helen Hayes Award nominations), which The New Yorker called "an example of how art can remake the world." The play ran Off Broadway for nine months and has played across the U.S. and internationally for over a decade. Raffo's libretto for the opera Fallujah featured in The Kennedy Center's International Theater Festival, received its world premiere at Long Beach Opera, and opened at New York City Opera in 2016. Her newest play, Noura, recently won a
Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Original New Play and
Williamstown Theatre Festival's prestigious L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award. Noura was developed over five years working inside multiple Middle Eastern communities, as well as at Georgetown University's Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics. Noura received its world premiere at
Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, later moving to Abu Dhabi and
Playwrights Horizons in New York City.
Johanna McKeon (Director) has directed
Mona Mansour's Unseen (
The Old Globe's Powers New Voices Festival),
Anne Washburn's I Have Loved Strangers (
Clubbed Thumb,
Williamstown Theatre Festival), Tokio Confidential (
Atlantic Theater Company), The Comedy of Errors and Schmoozy Togetherness (Williamstown), Much Ado About Nothing, Cymbeline, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Rise and Fall of
Annie Hall (Martha's
Vineyard Playhouse), A Hatful of Rain (ITS Festival Warsaw), Semi-Permanent (New York International Fringe Festival; Outstanding Solo Show), The Importance of Being Earnest (Bard College), Golden Motors (BRIC), and Functional Drunk, Fiesta Cabana, and The Tanks Break (
Ontological-Hysteric Theater). She directs frequently for the Obie Award-winning Noor Theatre, founded by
Lameece Issaq to develop and produce theatre artists of Middle Eastern decent. McKeon was Associate Director on the Broadway productions of King Kong, War Paint, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, American Idiot, and Grey Gardens, and she has directed multiple national and international tours. Her independent feature premiere, Auld Lang Syne, received the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2016 Indie Street Film Festival. She is the recipient of Drama League, Boris Sagal, and Fulbright Fellowships. McKeon received her M.F.A. from The University of Texas at Austin.
Noura at
The Old Globe is supported in part through a gift from Production Sponsors The Joseph Cohen and Martha Farish New Play Development Fund and The Prado at Balboa Park. Financial support is provided by The City of San Diego.
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