PLAY GUIDE 2015 2016 About ATC ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction to the Play ............................................................................................................................... 2 Meet the Playwright .................................................................................................................................... 4 Meet the Characters ................................................................................................................................... 4 Major Religions of the U.S......................................................................................................................... 5 A (Very) Brief History of the Middle East...................................................................................................... 14 Indo-Pakistani History................................................................................................................................. 17 References: Art, World and Religion............................................................................................................. 20 Disgraced Play Guide written and designed by Katherine Monberg, ATC Literary Manager, with assistance from April Jackson, Learning & Education Manager; Bryanna Patrick and Luke Young; Learning & Education Associates. SUPPORT FOR ATC’S LEARNING & EDUCATION PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY: APS Rosemont Copper Arizona Commission on the Arts Stonewall Foundation Bank of America Foundation Target Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona The Boeing Company City of Glendale The Donald Pitt Family Foundation Community Foundation for Southern Arizona The Johnson Family Foundation, Inc. Cox Charities The Lovell Foundation Downtown Tucson Partnership The Marshall Foundation Enterprise Holdings Foundation The Maurice and Meta Gross Foundation Ford Motor Company Fund The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation The Stocker Foundation JPMorgan Chase The WIlliam L. and Ruth T. Pendleton Memorial Fund John and Helen Murphy Foundation Tucson Medical Center National Endowment for the Arts Tucson Pima Arts Council Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Wells Fargo PICOR Charitable Foundation ABOUT ATC Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company. This means that all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular person as a profit. Eash season, ATC employs hundreds of actors, directors and designers from all over the country to create the work you see on stage. In addition, ATC currently employs approximately 50 staff members in our production shops and administrative offices in Tucson and Phoenix during our season. Among these people are carpenters, painters, marketing professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, sound and light board operators, tailors, costume designers, box office agents, stage crew - the list is endless - representing am amazing range of talents and skills. We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to assist the theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in marketing and fundraising, and help represent the theatre in our community. Roughly 150,000 people attend our shows every year, and several thousand of those people support us with charitable contributions in addition to purchasing their tickets. Businesses large and small, private foundations and the city and state governments also support our work financially. All of this is in support of our vision and mission: The mission of Arizona Theatre Company is to inspire, engage and entertain - one moment, one production and one audience at a time. Our mission is to create professional theatre that continually strives to reach new levels of artistic excellence that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the nation. In order to fulfill our mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens. The Temple of Music and Art, the home of ATC shows in downtown The Herberger Theater Center, ATC’s performance venue in downtown Tucson. Phoenix. 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY Disgraced By Ayad Akhtar Directed by David Ira Goldstein Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is a layered interrogation of the psychological, traditional, moral and social constructs that meld into identity, to form the complex, three- dimensional humanity that is shared—and yet in contrast—among us all. The play tells the story of Amir, a big shot lawyer with Vandit Bhatt, Allison Jean White and Elijah Alexander in ATC’s production of Disgraced. Photo by Tim Fuller. plans to make partner living the dream on New York’s Upper East Side, only to have the intangible forces of the world exploit the seams of his own identity, wrenching apart his dreams and shattering his sense of self. The story culminates in a high-stakes dinner party described by The New York Times as “a hotly contested game of Twister” as dual-identities, politics and traditions clash, regroup, and finally, explode. Disgraced premiered at Chicago’s American Theater Company before moving on to Lincoln Center Theater in 2012, a vibrant playwriting debut for multi-talented playwright Ayad Akhtar, whose voice as a novelist, screenwriter and actor has been hailed as “a generous new voice in American fiction.” Born in New York City to Pakistani immigrants and raised in Milwaukee, Akhtar speaks to the multiple identities forged in and by the modern American melting pot, and the innumerable facets of assumption, judgment, self-deception, and acceptance that underscore the contemporary social fabric of America. In Akhtar’s own words, “There are ways that the colonial history of the West is still playing out in the Muslim world. The events that comprise that history—a disgrace of native peoples—is still very much a part of our contemporary moment.” Akhtar identifies true and transparent engagement with the world as the crux of his narrative, seeking the “full engagement of the emotional and intellectual self” to provide the final necessary component to the “vital, living, tragic situation” that plays out in real time on the stage. 2 Akhtar cites his own experiences growing up and navigating the complex identity politics of America as a spark of inspiration behind his writing: “In my early 30s, I started to realize I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone I was not.” This journey of his own self-discovery led him to a new artistic understanding, one in which art is about engaging with the world around us rather than an abstract quest for self-expression. “All I did metaphorically was to turn and look over my shoulder at what I was running away from.” Also central to that self-knowledge were the events of September 11th and its immediate cultural aftermath. “Post-9/11, folks who looked like me became very visible,” says Akhtar. “Life changed. I and a lot of people like me felt differently after that. Like Amir, the fact of being Muslim, whether religious or cultural, became a significant fact that could not be avoided.” Though conscious of the social and political forces that interweave within Disgraced, Akhtar also posits a determined awareness and aversion to sermonizing: “I can’t be a spokesman for anything other than my own concerns…and if I’m bringing any political awareness to that process, that mitigates my freedom” and detracts from the audience experience in which lies the power and impact of the piece. While the play illuminates traditions of representation and certain Islamophobic tropes, the sense of shared humanity is the heart and soul of the experience; the opportunity to share in complex perspectives that mirror the observable world. Akhtar identifies that mirror function as integral to the narrative and theatrical process: “One of the things that’s problematic to a lot of people is that some readings of the play seem to undermine other readings. My contention is that your reading of this play tells you a lot about yourself” and your place within the ongoing cultural and social dialogue. “It makes perfect sense to me that people would gravitate to whatever reading is going to help them. But ultimately it doesn’t really matter,” because there is a space for awareness, and conversation, that has been opened. According to Akhtar, “Art’s capacity to change the world is profoundly limited. But what it can do is change the way we see things individually” and “that kind of clear-eyed approach to reality is something for which I’m hoping the play can be a portal.” 3 MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT Ayad Akhtar (Playwright) is the writer of Disgraced (Broadway, LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater, 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and 2013 Obie Award for Extraordinary Achievement); The Who & The What (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater and La Jolla Playhouse) and The Invisible Hand (New York Theatre Workshop/The Repertory Theater of St. Louis). Also a novelist, Mr. Akhtar is the author of American Dervish, published in 2012