ACT Presents 'Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World,' Closes 7/17

ACT is honored to produce the World Premiere of Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by award-winning local playwright Yussef El Guindi. Full of unabashed sweetness and goofy charm, this sexy, "very now" new work reminds us that we are all "immigrants" with far more connecting than separating us. The production will end on July 17, 2011.

A romantic comedy that embraces the richness and diversity of America today, the story follows Musa (Shanga Parker), an Egyptian cab driver who's been in America less than a year, as he falls for Sheri (Carol Roscoe), a sassy American waitress with an unfortunate dating history, and how his life takes on unexpected and delightfully complicated turns.

"Pilgrims explores the emotional havoc that attends those who leave one country to try and make a home in another country...the baggage that one unavoidably lugs around in one's travels, as well as the stuff you're forced to leave behind. And how the absence of those things left behind often accrues an emotional weight of its own. A weird number is done on your psyche when you find the familiar touchstones of your home country absent from your daily life. That is, of course, both thrilling and exciting, as well as overwhelming, and even terrifying at times," said El Guindi. "Sometimes, an emotional free-fall takes place, where nothing familiar remains for you to hold onto in times of crises. Truly, one becomes a stranger in a strange land; and one simply can't create memories and comfort zones fast enough to break this fall."

Director Anita Montgomery adds, "Though only one of the five characters in Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World was born and raised in the United States, the story feels distinctly and uniquely American to me. For hundreds of years, people have been emigrating to this country in search of a more open and self-determined life, and those of us who were hatched in the U.S. certainly feel that it is a part of our right, indeed part of our DNA as Americans, to move around and redefine ourselves as often as it takes to live the kind of life we want to live here. America the melting pot, though increasingly rich and diversified, has always faced tough challenges as different worlds and traditions come into contact. Since 9/11, Americans of Islamic heritage have been particularly vilified and misunderstood. I just love it that Yussef addresses some of these issues from a completely non- political perspective, giving us instead an insider's view of the confusion of being from somewhere else and trying to fit in, while spinning a delightful, funny and romantic love story out of this particularly American culture-clash."

Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World received a workshop at the 2010 Icicle Creek Theatre Festival (ICTF) presented in Leavenworth and in Seattle in partnership with ACT's Central Heating Lab. All of the ICTF plays selected since 2007 have been developed further; including Pilgrims, five of the plays have evolved to completed, fully-staged productions at regional, international, and off-Broadway houses.

While El Guindi may be a local treasure, his works are well-known and lauded around the country. He has been the recipient of multiple awards, including ACT's 2008 New Play Award for Language Rooms, which received a World Premiere at The Wilma Theater in 2010. His play, Back of the Throat, is the winner of the 2004 Northwest Playwright's Competition held by Theater Schmeater. It won LA Weekly's Excellence in Playwrighting Award for 2006, and was also nominated for the 2006 American Theater Critics Association's Steinburg/New Play Award, and voted Best New Play of 2005 by the Seattle Times. It was first staged by San Francisco's Thick Description and Golden Thread Productions; then later presented in various theaters around the country including The Flea Theater in New York.

Another play of El Guindi's, Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, staged by Silk Road Theatre Project, won the After Dark Award for Best New Play in Chicago, 2006. His two-related one-acts, Acts of Desire, were staged by the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles. Back of the Throat, and those two related one-acts, now titled Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda's and Karima's City, have been published by Dramatists Play Service. El Guindi holds a Master of Fine Arts from Carnegie-Mellon University and was playwright-in-residence at Duke University.

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