Dixon Place & National Queer Theater present
In Partnership With the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs and NYC Pride
Performance of She He Me See the American Premier of She He Me, Written by Amahl Khouri, Directed by Sivan Battat. Featuring Pooya Mohseni*, Samy Nour Younes* and Louis Sallan, with a talkback moderated by Sivan Battat

Description

She He Me is the first Arab transgender play. It follows the true stories of three Arab characters who challenge gender norms. Randa is an Algerian transwoman who is expelled under the threat of death from her homeland because of her LGBT activism there. Omar is a Jordanian gay man, who rather than body dysphoria, suffers social dysphoria when it comes to the strict codes of masculinity imposed and expected of him by both the heterosexual and gay community around him. Rok is a Lebanese transman. His main challenge is convincing his very conservative religious mother that her daughter is actually a boy. Through humour and horror, the three characters come up against the state, society, the family, but also themselves. She He Me was staged at Kosmos Theatre in Vienna in March 2019. It also had a staged reading at the New York Public Library in 2017, the Münchner Kammerspiele in December 2016, as well as at the Arcola Global Queer Plays and the Lark hotINK international play reading series. 

 

*We wish to express our gratitude to the Performers’ Union, Actors’ Equity Association, through Theatre Authority, Inc. for their consideration in permitting the artists to appear in this program

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Amahl Khouri is a queer transgender Jordanian documentary playwright and theatremaker based in Berlin. Khouri is the author of several plays, including She He Me (Kosmos Theatre, Vienna 2019), ICH BRAUCHE MEINE RUHE (Politik im Freien Theater Festival, Munich 2018) and No Matter Where I Go (Beirut 2014). Khouri is also a part of the Climate Change Theater Action and their play Oh, How We Loved Our Tuna! was read internationally as part of the initiative. Khouri was a selected playwright at the Arcola Global Queer Plays (London 2018) and the Lark hotINK international play reading series (NYC, 2015). Khouri was a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab (NYC, 2013) and was the recipient of a Rosenthal Emerging Voices fellowship for poetry from PEN USA (Los Angeles, 2007). Khouri’s work has been published in several U.S. journals, as well as Global Queer Plays (Oberon Books 2018), Skrivena Ljubav (Samizdat 2018) and International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer anthology (Palgrave,2016). Khouri’s work will also appear in the upcoming International Queer Drama Anthology published by Neofelis Verlag in 2020.

Sivan Battat is an Iraqi-Jewish theatre director, cultural worker and educator. Sivan has worked at numerous theaters across NYC and elsewhere, including with the Atlantic Theater, Ars Nova, MCC, NYTW, Audible Theatre, Studio Theatre, Mosaic Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theater, the Shakespeare Theatre, the Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa and more. As a cultural organizer, Sivan works with NYC-based Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), most recently creative directing the first ever JFREJ Mimouna, a celebration of identity & ritual led by members of the Mizrahi/Sephardi Caucus. Sivan trained at the Moscow Art Theater School, and attended Wesleyan University. Sivanbattat.com

Pooya Mohseni is an Iranian-American actor, writer, filmmaker & Transgender activist. She’s co-producer/star/writer of “Transit “, a short film about love between a trans woman and a cis man, coming in 2020. Her stage performances  include “Our Town” in Pride Plays, dir Jenna Worsham, “Hamlet” in Play On Shakespeare festival, dir Ellen McLaughlin, an award winning one woman show “One Woman”, in United Solo at The Theatre Row, dir Joan Kane, “Galatea”, dir Mo Zhou for the WP Pipeline festival, “The Good Muslim” dir William Carden at EST. She has guest starred on season 21 of “Law & Order: SVU “ dir Mariska Hargitay, “Falling Water” on USA and “Madam Secretary”. Represented by Headline Talent Agency.

Louis Sallan is an Arab American actor who has his BA from Western Michigan University and an MFA from NYU Graduate Acting.  Some of his more recent theatre credits are: Romeo and Juliet at Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Tybalt, Oslo at Northern Stage; Hassan, The Invisible Hand at Cleveland Playhouse; Bashir, The Mecca Tales at The Sheen Center; Reza, The Strangest at New York Theatre Workshop; Nounu.  TV/Film Credits: Blue Bloods,The Blacklist, The Blacklist: Redemption and Madame Secretary. @lou_sallan
Samy Nour Younes Figaredo is a proud multi-hyphenate: Lebanese-American, Puerto Rican, actor, activist, aerialist, consultant, pianist, public speaker, puppeteer, singer, and more. Samy uses both masculine (he/him) and neutral (they/them) pronouns.  Samy has recently performed in such noteworthy productions as Pay No Attention to the Girl (Target Margin Theater), Well-Intentioned White People (Barrington Stage Company), and Into the Woods (Ford’s Theatre), to name a few. They can also be seen on Season 4 of Amazon’s original series Transparent. Their one-person show, everyday., debuted at The Tank in December 2019, with a remount planned in the future. They also recorded two audiobooks by transgender authors to be released this year. Samy is highly involved in trans activism, having served on the leadership teams of the DC Area Transmasculine Society, the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, and the Charm City Sisters. They have co-organized rallies and benefit events for Trans Pride, Transgender Day of Remembrance, and more; and have spoken publicly on discrimination in the workforce and healthcare. Some of the organizations to benefit from these efforts include HIPS DC, Moveable Feast, Youth Empowered Society, Sistas of the “T,” and Brother Help Thyself. Samy’s most visible contribution is his 2018 TED Talk on Trans History. Professional efforts include Samy’s work as an Inclusivity Trainer for the Ackerman Institute’s Gender & Family Project, and the Project & Community Manager at Arts Business Collaborative, a nonprofit consulting firm committed to improving the quality of life of people of color through the arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

WATCH NOW!

Performed live on Zoom to be live-streamed on Facebook Live, now on YouTube.

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