NO SUMMARY   Meet the Cast of Drowning in Cairo with Golden Thread on Fridsay 25 February 2022
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 2022-02-25

Golden Thread presented a conversation with the cast of Drowning in Cairo by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network on Friday 25 February 2022 at 11 a.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 1 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 2 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).

Golden Thread's Executive Artistic Director Sahar Assaf introduces and interviews cast members of Drowning in Cairo, a world premiere by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh. The play focuses on three young men whose lives are forever altered when an unexpected police raid results in the arrest and public humiliation of the attendees of the Queen Boat, a gay nightclub docked on the Nile. Come meet Martin Yousif Zebari and Wiley Naman Strasser and learn about their theatre journeys and what excites them about this debut production coming up in April 2022 at Golden Thread. 
 
Bios  
Martin Zebari (he/they) is an Iraqi, Assyrian-American actor, playwright and recent Los Angeles transplant. As an actor, he has worked with Goodman Theatre (The Winter’s Tale, Yasmina’s Necklace), Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Guards at the Taj), Chicago Shakespeare Theatre (Mary Stuart), Court Theatre (The Hard Problem), Atlantic Theatre Company (For the Right Reasons), National Queer Theatre (Mosque4Mosque), The Angle Project (Unpitied, Lost and Guided), Broken Nose Theatre Company (Human Terrain), Milwaukee Repertory Theatre (A Christmas Carol, Dreamgirls), Illinois Shakespeare Festival (Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors, Failure: A Love Story, The Magical Mind of Billy Shakespeare) and has appeared on NBC’s Chicago Med. Martin holds a BFA in Acting from the Arts University of Bournemouth, England and is represented by Stewart Talent Chicago. martinyousifzebari.com  
 
 Wiley Naman Strasser is an Armenian-American performer native to the San Francisco Bay Area. Most recently he appeared in the Broadway national tour of A Christmas Carol at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco, a Tony Award-winning production originally conceived at the Old Vic in London. Other credits include work with Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Aurora Theatre Company, Berkeley Rep and world premieres with Detour Dance, Hope Mohr Dance, Magic Theatre, Cutting Ball, Crowded Fire, and the Los Angeles Theater Center. He has trained internationally with Teatr Zar and Teatro Yuyachkani, and received his degree from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television. wileynamanstrasser.com 
 
Sahar Assaf (she/her) is Golden Thread’s Executive Artistic Director. She is a Lebanese stage actor, director, translator, and producer. Before joining Golden Thread, Sahar taught theatre at the American University of Beirut where she co-founded the AUB Theater Initiative with playwright and English Professor Robert Myers. Her work at the Theater Initiative includes translating and directing Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding in a site-specific promenade performance and co-translating, co-directing, and starring in Shakespeare’s King Lear at al-Madina Theater in Beirut, the first production of Shakespeare in Lebanese colloquial, The Rape and Rituals of Signs and Transformations by Sa’dallah Wannous, Watch Your Step: Beirut Heritage Walking Tour which was a site-specific devised work on the Lebanese civil war. Sahar is a strong advocate of documentary theatre and recently conceived and directed Meen El Felten, an immersive documentary play on sexual assault, and No Demand No Supply, a hybrid documentary play about sex trafficking and prostitution. She is a member of Lincoln Center Director’s Lab (2014), co-founder and artistic director of Directors Lab Mediterranean (2019), and a Fulbright alumnus with an MA in Theater Studies from Central Washington University (2011). Drowning in Cairo is Sahar’s directorial debut at Golden Thread Productions. 

https://howlround.com/happenings/meet-cast-drowning-cairo-adam-ashraf-elsayigh