In 2015, actor and writer Lameece Issaq will celebrate the five-year anniversary of Noor Theatre, the production company she co-founded that is dedicated to developing and supporting the work of Middle Eastern theater artists. Since its inception in 2010, Noor Theatre has been in residence at the renowned off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan, and as Issaq looks back, she’s thrilled to find that what she’s doing is gaining traction.
“What’s really exciting is that our community continues to grow,” she says. “I’m meeting more actors and directors and playwrights, and creating relationships with organizations who are likeminded. Interest hasn’t waned at all.”
Noor has helped launch several projects and productions over the years, but its inaugural play was Issaq’s own playwriting debut, Food and Fadwa. Issaq and her co-writer, fellow Palestinian-American Jacob Kader, spent five years writing the play through workshops and writing residencies.
“I wanted to explore the psycho-spiritual aspects of what happens when someone gets their home taken away,” says Issaq of the play, which takes place in Bethlehem and centers on protagonist Fadwa Faranesh. Fadwa is an unmarried Christian Palestinian woman in her thirties, struggling to prepare food for her younger sister’s wedding amid the chaos of life under the Israeli occupation.
The most unique thing about Food and Fadwa was the sensory nostalgia that filled the air—the actors actually cooked Palestinian food on stage. “When you walk into a place and there’s an aroma, it takes you somewhere. That’s an experience that we don’t necessarily have watching film or television,” explains Issaq. “Every night we cooked knafee and hashwee using my mom’s recipes. I wanted the smell of the spices, and for the audience to buy into the experience.”
Issaq says the fact that Fadwa is Christian allowed her to model much of the play on her own experiences, since Issaq herself comes from a Christian family. “My parents are from Haifa; my mom is from Shafa Amr, which is halfway between Haifa and Nazareth. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1972 when my mom was seven months pregnant with me,” she says. Growing up, Issaq’s parents maintained their heritage, speaking Arabic around the house and visiting their homeland every five years. “That’s when I felt the conflict of identity,” says Issaq. “I didn’t know where I belonged, being in the gray area where I was not really American or Palestinian. I was Palestinian-American. And that is a very specific way of being.”
Before moving to New York in 2002, Issaq received her undergraduate degree in theater, and an MFA in acting from the University of Texas. “Acting school is like three years of crying,” she says. “You’re training yourself to be some kind of vessel.”
Since then, Issaq’s identity as a Palestinian-American has shaped her professional career considerably. She worked on the Arab American Comedy Festival, and of course, wrote her play, which is now being commissioned for translation into Arabic. Issaq hopes to take Food and Fadwa overseas in 2015.
As for Noor Theatre, Issaq and Executive Director Maha Chehlaoui keep it going on a shoestring, but their productions are enjoying success. In the spring of this year, Noor presented The Myth Project, in which three emerging directors created plays based on a Middle Eastern myth of their choice. Noor Theatre is also in its fifth season of the Highlight play reading series that has sold out to full houses—most recently, Noor put on a reading of Yussef El Guindi’s newest play, Threesome. And next year, Issaq hopes Noor Theatre will produce a 48-hour theater festival, in which playwrights and actors will have just two days to create a show based on their reactions to current events.
“That’s the way that we get to change the story, by creating more avenues to tell them,” Issaq says. “Our work is cut out for us, of course, but my hope is that people will gain a better understanding of what’s happening in the Middle East and to the diasporic communities.”