VISION RESIDENCY MENASAFIED FEBRUARY 23 @ 7PM ET MENASAFIED FEBRUARY 23 @ 7PM ET FEATURING GEORGE ABUD JONATHAN RAVIV VISHAL VAIDYA SHERZ ALETAHA SHARONE SAYEGH KUHOO VERMA SHOBA NARAYANAN THE TEAM Directed by SHARONE SAYEGH Arranged & Music Directed by MONA SEYED-BOLORFOROSH Music Produced, Mixed & Mastered by JACKLYN RIHA Videography & Video Editing by BRIAN VINIK VIRTUAL BAND Bansuri SRISHTI BIYANI Bass & Kanun JOHN MURCHISON Clarinet TANO BROCK Piano MONA SEYED-BOLORFOROSH Violin BENGISU GÖKÇE Tabla, Dolak, Durbuka, Riq, Darbuka, Frame Drum, Talking Drum & Udu MT ADITYA SRINIVASAN Djembe & Doumbek GILBERT MANSOUR Guitar & Oud HARVEY VALDES Curated by Vision Resident RONA SIDDIQUI THE ARTISTS WOULD LIKE TO THANK Rona Siddiqui, Jamshied Sharifi, Lee Poulin & Joe Tannenbaum. Ars Nova operates on the unceded land of the Lenape peoples on the island of Manhahtaan (Mannahatta) in Lenapehoking, the Lenape Homeland. We acknowledge the brutal history of this stolen land and the displacement and dispossession of its Indigenous people. We also acknowledge that after there were stolen lands, there were stolen people. We honor the generations of displaced and enslaved people that built, and continue to build, the country that we occupy today. We gathered together in virtual space to watch this performance. We encourage you to consider the legacies of colonization embedded within the technology and structures we use and to acknowledge its disproportionate impact on communities of color and Indigenous peoples worldwide. We invite you to join us in acknowledging all of this as well as our shared responsibility: to consider our way forward in reconciliation, decolonization, anti-racism and allyship. We commit ourselves to the daily practice of pursuing this work. ABOUT THE ARTISTS SHARONE SAYEGH (Director, Performer) most recently played Bonnie on the 1st National Tour of Come From Away. Before that, she originated the role of Anna in The Band’s Visit on Broadway (OBC). Other Broadway: Mamma Mia!. Off Broadway: Mrs. Trumbauer in Road Show (City Center Encores), Anna in The Band's Visit (Atlantic Theater Co, World Premiere), Sharone in The Wildness (Ars Nova, World Premiere) and Scheherazade in Scheherazade (Prospect Theater Co). Regional: La Jolla Playhouse, Muny, Florida Rep, San Jose Rep. TV: Instinct (CBS), Limitless (CBS). Syracuse University Alum, sharonesayegh.com | @sharonesayegh MONA SEYED-BOLORFOROSH (Music Director, Arranger, Piano) is a music director, conductor and pianist whose works encompass numerous genres including musical theater, symphonic music and opera. OFF-BROADWAY: Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things. NATIONAL TOUR: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (keys 3). Credits in opera, film and orchestral music include Heartbeat Opera (music assistant) and Harry Potter Soundtrack Orchestra (former music director, conductor). She is an alumna of Berklee College of Music, where she studied composition and conducting. JACKLYN RIHA (Music Producer) is a New York-based music director, orchestrator, vocalist and music arranger. She has served as music director for several readings and workshops. Highlights include: Wonder Women: The Musical, Legacy: The Musical, Bisland & Bly at the 2019 New York Musical Festival and Rockquiem at the Triad Theater. Recently, she worked as the associate music director and keyboard programmer on Loch Ness at the Merry Go Round Playhouse and associate music directed Oratorio for Living Things with Ars Nova in the Spring of 2020. Since graduation from Berklee College of Music, Jacklyn has provided orchestration for Worlds Apart and has worked extensively as a music assistant on various shows, including The Hello Girls (Off-Broadway), Fat Kid Rules the World, The Princess Bride and a few others. jacklynrihamusic.com BRIAN VINIK (Videographer & Video Editor) is an editor and videographer based in New York City. His work ranges from editing for the New York Philharmonic to video and music production for local bands and post production for T.V., including Say Yes to the Dress and Lone Star Law. Brian has had a life-long passion for MENASA music; it was actually a song featuring Middle Eastern elements that inspired him to learn video editing when he was a teenager! Brian is thrilled and honored to work with Ars Nova and this group of incredible talents on MENASAfied. This production has been a dream come true and he hopes it’s the first of many collaborations to come! GEORGE ABUD (Performer) is an Arab-American actor, recently nominated for a 2020 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical for his role as Nerd Face in Emojiland: The Musical at The Duke on 42nd, for which he also appears on the Original Cast Recording. Broadway: The Band’s Visit starring Katrina Lenk & Tony Shalhoub (Daytime Emmy Award, OBC Recording); The Visit starring Chita Rivera & Roger Rees (OBC Recording). Off-Broadway: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui opposite Raúl Esparza, Nathan The Wise opposite F. Murray Abraham, Peer Gynt opposite Gabriel Ebert and Allegro directed by John Doyle (all for Classic Stage Company); The Band’s Visit directed by David Cromer (Atlantic Theater Company); and Lolita, My Love opposite Robert Sella (York Theatre Company). Regional: Lewis Chapman in August Rush (Paramount Theatre); Charlie Davenport in Annie Get Your Gun directed by Sarna Lapine (Bay Street Theater); and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Geva Theatre Center). Internationally, he appeared opposite Barbara Walsh, Marc Kudisch and Paulo Szot in the world-premiere political opera The New Prince at the Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam. SHERZ ALETAHA (Performer) Sherz, which is pronounced like more than one Cher, has had the pleasure of performing at The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, in Prospect Theater Company's Archetypes, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway’s Disaster!, as Dixon Place in Spring Alive (cast album available), as Aldonza in Man of La Mancha (Triad Stage) and in numerous readings and concerts of new and developing work. On Camera work includes The Detour, The First Wives Club, Three Trembling Cities, Wing Women, Insomnia and numerous commercials. Follow her at @ morethanonecher. SHOBA NARANAYAN (Performer) In what Playbill called "a personal milestone and a key moment on Broadway," Shoba Narayan made her Broadway debut in the Josh Groban-starring musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 as the first South Asian female in a principal role since Bombay Dreams. The musical garnered 12 Tony nominations. She recently completed starring and touring as Eliza Hamilton in the world phenomenon and Broadway smash hit Hamilton from Lin-Manuel Miranda. She is currently starring as Nessarose in Wicked on Broadway. Film and television credits include the award-winning independent feature film Growing Up Smith directed by Frank Lotito, Quantico (Mark Gordon / ABC), Halal in the Family with Aasif Mandvi, Gossip Girl (The CW), Coin Heist (Netflix) and Mistress America directed by Noah Baumbach. JONATHAN RAVIV (Performer) is an Emmy award-winner and original cast member of the 10-time Tony Award-winning musical, The Band's Visit. Most recently, Jonathan was seen in the Olney Theatre's streaming version of The Humans (NYT Critic's Pick). In addition, Jonathan has extensive Off-Broadway and regional theater credits, having worked at some of the most prestigious theatres in the country including: Atlantic Theatre, Lucille Lortel, Cherry Lane, Westside Theatre, Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Berkeley Rep and Writers' Theatre. He has also had several guest star appearances in major network television and film and has done extensive voice-over and motion capture work. Jonathan can also be heard on the original cast albums of The Band's Visit and The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. Follow him on social media: @jonathanraviv VISHAL VAIDYA (Performer) is a performer and voice teacher based in New York City. He made his Broadway debut as Larry the Cameraman in Groundhog Day. Other performing credits include New York City Center (Road Show, 1776), Prospect Theater (Einstein’s Dreams), Arena Stage, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Theatre Company and more. He can be heard on Charlie Rosen’s Come Hang, Losing My Mind: A Sondheim Disco Fever Dream and the cast album for Einstein’s Dreams. IG: @Vishgram | Twitter: @TweetsbyVish KUHOO VERMA (Performer) is an NYC-based artist whose focus is on genre-bending and developmental work. Some favorite roles include Zubeida (X-Files Girl) in the Oscar-nominated film The Big Sick and Velma in Dave Malloy’s OCTET (Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk Award). Look out for her film Plan B coming out on Hulu this year, and a show at The Public next year. Black Trans Lives Matter. Much love and light! Instagram: @ therealkuhoo RONA SIDDIQUI (Vision Resident, Curator) is a composer/lyricist based in NYC. She is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson Grant and Billie Burke Ziegfeld award. She was named one of Broadway Women's Fund's Women to Watch. Her show Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America, had a reading at Playwrights Horizons (dir. by raja feather kelly). Other musicals include One Good Day, Hip Hop Cinderella and The Tin. She is the recipient of the ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award, the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award and ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She has written pieces for Wicked's 16th anniversary commemoration Flying Free, 24 Hour