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DRAW THE CIRCLE by and starring Mashuq Mushtaq Deen will be presented at InterAct Theatre in June 2018

InterAct Announces 2017-18 Season of New Plays Including DRAW THE CIRCLE by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen

PHILADELPHIA: InterAct Theatre Company has announced its 2017-18 season, which will feature four plays, including world premieres by A. Rey Pamatmat and Fin Kennedy.

“InterAct’s mission of fostering civic discourse around the social, political, and cultural issues of our time holds a particular imperative as we celebrate this milestone 30th year,” said producing artistic director Seth Rozin in a statement. “Our goal of forwarding thought-provoking work that challenges audiences is more important than ever, and in this anniversary year we are excited to be presenting two world premieres, including a cinematic thriller about the integrity of truth and the importance of controlling narrative that is the largest show InterAct has ever produced. Our season will grapple with some of the most topical current themes, such as the darkly comedic side of LGBTQ mainstream ‘acceptance’ in the age of marriage equality, and the intensely personal and political journey of gender transition.”

The season will close with Mashuq Mushtaq Deen’s Draw the Circle (June 1-24, 2018). Deen will star in the one-person show that chronicles his gender transition and its effects on his traditional Muslim family.

Founded in 1988, InterAct produces new and contemporary plays explore the social, political, and cultural issues of our time.

Link to the article from American Theatre here.

With by Carter W. Lewis, Selected for 2017 Play Penn Conference

Clifford and Minnie devolve into a world of often hysterical but ultimately heartbreaking minutiae as they navigate a blizzard, a dead son, a rat in the kitchen and a half decorated Christmas tree, to find dignity in their final days.

Carter W. Lewis is currently Playwright-in-Residence at Washington University. Previously, he was Literary Manager & Playwright-in-Residence for The Geva Theatre Center (NY), and was co-founder and Resident Playwright for Upstart Stage in Berkeley, California. He has won several national awards including The Julie Harris – Playwriting Award, The State Theatre – Best New American Play, The Cincinnati Playhouse Rosenthal New Play Prize (1996 & 2001), New Dramatist Playwriting Award, Playwright’s Center Jerome Residency, and is a two-time nominee for the American Theatre Critics Award.  He has had close to 200 productions of his plays nationwide. Carter lives in St. Louis with his dog, Bucket.

Works by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, and More Slated for International Human Rights Art Festival

Playwright Mashuq Deen (New Dramatists Fellow 2022) brings the story of his own transgender journey as a member of a traditional South Asian family and Playwright Catherine Filloux, winner of more than 40 awards for playwriting, activism and peace work, brings her latest work to the stage at New York City’s first arts-advocacy festival of its kind, the International Human Rights Art Festival.

Presented by The Institute of Prophetic Activist Art, co-sponsored and housed at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie St, NYC), the Festival will take place March 3-5, 2017. Tickets are Free-$25 and are now available online with full schedule and participant information at www.dixonplace.org.

All works are advocacy-based, and treat a specific issue of concern — of even more concern now, with the recent political transfer of power!

Deen and Filloux are joined by the award-winning collective Superhero Clubhouse, Grammy-nominated Alika Hope and the Ray of Hope Project, long-time NYC spoken word collective Poetic People Power, Ari Gold, America’s first openly gay popstar and winner of numerous national awards.

The International Human Rights Art Festival unites over 70 artists in Arts Advocacy producing more than 40 events. The Festival will use passionate, tough, unforgiving beauty to create social energy to catalyze collective action on social concerns, promote equality for racial, ethnic and religious groups, advocate for specific policy change in issues such as climate change, LGBT and disability laws, religious tolerance and other issues. Additionally, it will use workshops, discussions and other hands-on activities to inspire nearly 2000 audience members (including child participants in the “kidsfest”) to learn how to use their own creative agency to advocate for positive policy changes and realize their power and capacity for greater civic engagement.

Draw the Circle by Mashuq Deen

New Dramatists Fellow (2022) Mashuq Deen presents his hilarious and deeply moving story of conservative Muslim mother at her wits end, a Muslim father who likes to tell jokes, and a queer American woman trying to make a good impression on her Indian in-laws. One immigrant family must come to terms with a child who defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter… and one woman will redefine the limits of unconditional love. This unique show compassionately brings to life the often ignored struggle that a family goes through when their child transitions from one gender to another.

Saturday, March 4, at 7:00 pm

Read the full article from Broadway World here.

Oren Safdie’s MR. GOLDBERG GOES TO TEL AVIV Up Next at Infinitheatre

Every year Infinitheatre touts Quebec’s finest playwrights in their season and Oren Safdie‘s Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv is no exception. Safdie is a four-time New York Times Critics’ Pick playwright who brought Infinitheatre the controversial hit Unseamly in 2014, a nervy play that dealt with sexual harassment in the garment industry.

Even bolder, Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv is a fast-paced poignant farce that jumps headlong into a jaw-rattling ride through the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, where allegiances constantly shift, religion is irreverent, and politics is a matter of survival.

Mr. Goldberg tells the story of an award-winning, Jewish Canadian gay author named Tony Goldberg, played by critically acclaimed performer David Gale, who arrives in Tel Aviv to deliver a blistering attack on the Israeli government to the country’s left leaning literate. But before he leaves his hotel room, the conflict in the Middle East comes to him.

Mr. Goldberg is not only a hilarious joy ride on the back of an inveterate conflict, it is a play that reaches out to everyone with one message.

As Safdie puts it, “if you think you can understand the complexities of the situation in the Middle East and make a judgement from reading a few articles or watching a couple of documentaries, you’re doing yourself a disservice.”

Read the full article from Broadway World here.

IF YOU GO:

Infinitheatre presents:
MR. GOLDBERG GOES TO TEL AVIV AT THE ST. JAMES THEATRE
Jan. 30th- Feb 19th, Tues-Sat. at 8:00 pm, Sundays at 2:00 pm
At St. James Theatre, 265 Rue Saint-Jacques, Montreal, QC H2Y 1M6
Tickets: Regular: $25, Students/Seniors: $20, Groups: $17, Infinitheatre 6Packs available (6 tickets for $100), all tickets +tax.
Box Office: 514 987-1774 ext. 104; Box-Office@Infinitheatre.com or www.Infinitheatre.com

Infinitheatre, Presenting a Play by Oren Safdie, Sheds Light On Middle East Conflict Through Poignant Farce

MR. GOLDBERG GOES TO TEL AVIV 2017 at the St. James Theatre – January 30th to February 19th, 2017.

Four Time New York Times Critics’ Pick Playwright Oren Safdie Returns to Infinitheatre to Deliver a Jaw-rattling Ride Through the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict.

Montreal, January 18th, 2017 – Every year Infinitheatre touts Quebec’s finest playwrights in their season and Oren Safdie’s Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv is no exception. Safdie is a four time New York Times Critics’ Pick playwright who brought Infinitheatre the controversial hit Unseamly in 2014, a nervy play that dealt with sexual harassment in the garment industry. Even bolder, Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv is a fast-paced poignant farce that jumps headlong into a jaw-rattling ride through the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, where allegiances constantly shift, religion is irreverent, and politics is a matter of survival.

Mr. Goldberg tells the story of an award-winning, Jewish Canadian gay author named Tony Goldberg, played by critically acclaimed performer David Gale, who arrives in Tel Aviv to deliver a blistering attack on the Israeli government to the country’s left leaning literate. But before he leaves his hotel room, the conflict in the Middle East comes to him.

Mr. Goldberg is not only a hilarious joy ride on the back of an inveterate conflict, it is a play that reaches out to everyone with one message.  As Safdie puts it, “if you think you can understand the complexities of the situation in the Middle East and make a judgement from reading a few articles or watching a couple of documentaries, you’re doing yourself a disservice.”  Safdie is well positioned to tackle the presumptions many outsiders have regarding the reality of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.  He’s a celebrated Montreal playwright who was born to Israeli parents.  His mother, originally from Poland, spent the war in hiding and his father, a descendant from Aleppo, Syria, was born in Haifa before Israel became a state.  In fact both of Safdie’s parents were living in Palestine when it became the state of Israel in 1948. Safdie traveled to Israel every summer as a boy to visit relatives and completed a three-month service with the Israeli pre-army. His family had a house in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City and Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv springs from this life experience in Jerusalem. While Safdie is technically an Israeli citizen by way of his father, he doesn’t consider himself a “true Israeli” because he’s exempt from doing a mandatory three-year military service… He instead has the option of going to Montreal where the biggest disputes have to do with language.

Infinitheatre’s Artistic Director and the Director of Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv, Guy Sprung, is also sensitive to the material. In fact, Sprung hosts discussions after certain shows in the lobby where audience members can voice their enjoyment or displeasure of the piece presented. “We want to use the delicious comedy that Oren has orchestrated as a gateway to understanding,” says Sprung. He goes on to explain that “it is critical that each character, from each side, is fully drawn in a three-dimensional manner. Conflict is part of human nature and it is important that we not forget how to disagree with one another with integrity,” Sprung maintains. It may be only the equivalent of a drop of water in the Mediterranean, but Infinitheatre hopes, in some small way, to contribute to peace from the ground up. Sprung draws out the humanity in each of the three characters in the play while exploring their respectively entrenched opposing political/religious views. He has intentionally cast a Jewish actor, Howard Rosenstein, in the role of a Palestinian and an Arab actor, Mohsen El Gharbi, in a Jewish role as a symbolic testament to our universal humanity.

Infinitheatre is Quebec’s premiere English-language theatre producing original Quebec works. Notably, both Mr. Goldberg and Unseamly were finalists in Infinitheatre’s hallmark annual playwriting competition Write-On-Q!. Each year, finalists from the competition receive a public staged reading through Infinitheatre’s The Pipeline series and often production in upcoming seasons. In addition to these initiatives, Infinitheatre provokes and nurtures the best in contemporary Quebec playwriting, and has pushed the craft to the next level by founding the Quebec Playwright’s Unit in 2014 (aka: The Unit). Infinitheatre challenges writers to develop their craft to its highest level and ensures that Quebec English-language plays are produced and celebrated in theatres across Canada and internationally.

Infinitheatre: developing, producing, and brokering new Quebec work.

Infinitheatre presents:
MR. GOLDBERG GOES TO TEL AVIV AT THE ST. JAMES THEATRE
Jan. 30th- Feb 19th, Tues-Sat. at 8:00 pm, Sundays at 2:00 pm
At St. James Theatre, 265 Rue Saint-Jacques, Montreal, QC H2Y 1M6
Tickets: Regular: $25, Students/Seniors: $20, Groups: $17, Infinitheatre 6Packs available (6 tickets for $100), all tickets +tax.
Box Office: 514 987-1774 ext. 104; Box-Office@Infinitheatre.com or www.Infinitheatre.com

Infinitheatre is generously supported by: Season sponsors CN and Hydro-Quebec

Infinitheatre gratefully acknowledges the support of Ezio Carosielli and the Rialto and St. James Theatres. Infinitheatre also thanks our production sponsor Hotel Le Cantlie Suites

To interview Infinitheatre Artistic Director Guy Sprung or Writer Oren Safdie and/or any participant of Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv –
Media Relations: Gen Blouin, gen@genesispr.com (514) 887-8187