Ismail Khalidi
Born in Beirut to Palestinian parents and raised in Chicago,Ismail Khalidi is a playwright and director who has written, directed, performed, curated and taught internationally.
Khalidi's plays include Tennis in Nablus (Alliance Theatre, 2010), Truth Serum Blues (Pangea World Theater, 2005), Foot (Teatro Amal, 2016-17), Sabra Falling (Pangea World Theater, 2017), Returning to Haifa (Finborough Theatre, 2018) and Dead Are My People (Noor Theatre, 2019). Khalidi's plays have been published in numerous anthologies. His writing on politics and culture has appeared in The Nation, Guernica, American Theatre Magazine, and Remezcla. His poetry and plays have been published by Mizna , and he co-edited Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora (TCG, 2015). Khalidi has received commissions from the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Noor Theatre, Pangea World Theatre, and The Public Theatre, and is currently a Visiting Artist at Teatro Amal in Chile. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Synopses
To request copies of any plays, please contact Amy Wagner (amy.wagner@abramsartny.com) or Ron Gwiazda (ron.gwiazda@abramsartny.com) at Abrams Artists Agency.
Books
Articles and other writing
"The Courage to be Dangerous", TCG Circle.
"Creation Under Occupation", American Theatre Magazine.
"Radical Acts", Guernica Magazine.
"To Zion and Back", Guernica Magazine.
"Remembering Juliano Mer Khemis", The Nation.
"Prisoner's in Parallel", in The Daily Beast.
"The Case for Palestine" The Daily Beast.
"The Showdown at the UN: The U.S. Blocks Palestinian Freedom", The Albany Times Union.
"Debunking the Palestinian Stereotype", The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Tennis in Nablus
‘Tennis in Nablus’ on the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage
Atlanta Journal Constitution, By Wendell Brock, February 8, 2010.
"For a play about a brutal 1939 rebellion in British-occupied Palestine, Ismail Khalidi’s “Tennis in Nablus” is a remarkably funny play. Blood is spilling on the streets. Families are fighting against each other. Prisoners are being tortured and hung. But about all the tennis-playing English invaders have on their minds is what they’ll wear to the next costume ball. Winner of the 2009 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, this Alliance Theatre world premiere is a beautifully crafted work of art that balances the Lebanese-born playwright’s passion for the politics of his homeland with a playful and irreverent comedic sensibility"
Theatre Review: Tennis In Nablus
Atlanta In Town Paper, by Manny Harris, February 9, 2010.
"" The charm of “Tennis in Nablus” is discovering that the humor and absurdity of life never cease, even in the most tense and appalling of times...Perhaps playwright Khalidi’s greatest triumph is that somehow glimmers of the truth and the absurdity of human existence emerge from “Tennis at Nablus.” In a corner of the world with complex and seemingly unsolvable problems, he shows us human beings whom we wish we knew better."
From the Columbia Spectator
“Tennis in Nablus delivers a thoughtful and pointed political argument while eliciting roars of laughter from the audience. Khalidi’s visceral depiction of human struggle allows him to illustrate complex themes, giving viewers a deeper insight into the complexities of today’s Palestinian situation, so rooted in the country’s chaotic history...[The play]inspires laughter and tears—and the frequency of the former serves masterfully to ensure the efficacy of the latter."
From Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
" 'As a Palestinian-American playwright,' says Ismail Khalidi, 'I am deeply committed to challenging the myths and distortions about Palestinians that abound in American discourse.' That's just one of Khalidi's goals in his award-winning play Tennis in Nablus, which enjoyed a successful run Sept. 7 to 25 at Stageworks Hudson, in New York's mid-Hudson Valley. He also dramatizes a Palestinian cry for independence that never recovered from its defeat in the 1936-'39 Arab Revolt."
Truth Serum Blues
Naomi Wallace, Obie Award-winning playwright, author of One Flea Spare, The Fever Chart, and Things of Dry Hours
“It were as though [Truth Serum Blues] had re-imagined, then redirected the fires of human passion, despair, joy, and the complicatedness of their histories, into one, new space of contact and combustion…[this work] is bold, intense, and fiercely intelligent.”
John Townsend, WKFAI radio and Minnesota Community Arts.net
“[Truth Serum Blues] is an unflinching, searing account of a "regular guy" targeted by Homeland Security in a turn one would expect from a totalitarian regime. Not in a Democracy…Khalidi's performance is magnificent and penetrating.”
Lydia Howell, Pulse of the Twin Cities
“The beautiful writing ranges from a kind of hip-hop spoken word to a Greek chorus to chilling hallucinatory interrogations.”
Inside/Outside: Six Plays From Palestine And The Diaspora
Inside/Outside: Six Plays From Palestine And The Diaspora
"Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora is evidence that theatre makers, inside Palestine and within the diaspora, are providing critical alternatives to restrained and distorted media narratives, which present Palestinians solely as victims, terrorists, or as individuals without agency except in relation to Israel.... Their work holds valuable lessons for students of Palestinian history, theatre-makers writ large, and advocates of Palestinian liberation. Most importantly, they remind us of Edward Said’s dictum that Palestinians do need not 'permission to narrate' their own lives, histories, and futures." - Muftah
"Inside/Outside is an important addition to the dramatic theatre canon... It boldly declares that there is such a thing as a Palestinian playwright and that Palestinianness can be claimed no matter where playwrights were born or in which language they write... These plays, though varied in their dramaturgical styles and geographic origins, provide valuable insights into Palestinian artists at this point in history.... Plays like these can go a long way toward counteracting the seemingly endless litany of negative narratives that pervade the media regarding Palestine." - Michael Malek Najjar, Arab Stages
"...the six beautiful plays in this edited volume are a valuable contribution to Palestine Studies and to Middle Eastern Studies in general. The book will also appeal to students of non-western theatre and drama, and will provide a valuable source for theatre researchers. These...eloquent and playable translations would offer directors, artists and actors the opportunity to stage these Palestinian texts, whether 'inside' or 'outside' Palestine." - Hala Nassar, Arab Stages
"This collection is remarkable for more than doubling the corpus of Palestinian plays in English, for encompassing both homeland and diaspora Palestinian writers, and for coming to print within a US theatre culture that’s seen more censorship than promotion of Palestinian concerns... Its varieties in content and style offer readers a provocative sampling of strategies of representing Palestine’s fraught past and present." - Kate Wilson, Arablit.org
"From the opening by the editors to the introduction by the Nathalie Handal, we are reminded that Palestinian expression, whether over identity, state rights or cultural production has often been rendered taboo before it even sees the light of day." - Middle East Monitor
"The plays in Inside/Outside have incredible wit and beautiful use of language between them." - Ellen McAteer, The Electronic Intifada and Green Left Weekly
Contact Info
- ismail.khalidi@gmail.com
©2013 - Bismuth
