MENA Theater Makers

MENA Theater Makers: Modeling Possibility and Resistance 

TORANGE YEGHIAZARIAN (she/her) is a playwright, director, and translator. Torange’s writing is featured in New Iranian Plays, Middle Eastern American Theatre, Performing Iran, Salaam. Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern-American Drama, and Casting a Movement, among others. She has translated works by leading contemporary Iranian playwrights including, Naghmeh Samini, Mohammad Yaghoubi, and Reza Soroor; and adapted to the stage a short story by Iran’s modernist master, Sadegh Hedayat, poems by leading feminist poet, Simin Behbehani, and classical romance poetry by Nizami (Layla & Majnun) published on Gleeditions.com. Torange has directed, devised, and collaborated on numerous plays including original short plays for young audiences. Her articles have been published in The Drama Review, American Theatre Magazine, AmerAsia Journal, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, and the Cambridge World Encyclopedia of Stage Actors. Torange is the Founding Artistic Director Emeritus of Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East. She is a founding member of Middle Eastern North African Theatre Makers Alliance, and serves on the board of Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists. Torange has been recognized by Theatre Bay Area and is one of Theatre Communication Group’s Legacy Leaders of Color. She was honored by the Cairo International Theatre Festival and the Symposium on Equity in the Entertainment Industry at Stanford University. Born in Iran and of Armenian heritage, Torange has a Masters in Theater from San Francisco State University and currently works as a freelance artist, writer, and consultant.

EVREN ODCIKIN (he/him) is a Turkish-American director, writer, and arts leader with a commitment to championing historically-excluded stories and voices in the American theater, and the proud 2024-25 Artist in Residence at Golden Thread Productions. His work is heart centered, globally minded, politically engaged, and centers joy as resistance. Recent directing credits: Macbeth and Mona Mansour’s unseen (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), christopher oscar pena’s Our Orange Sky (Profile Theatre), Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song (Marin Theatre), Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul (Northern Stage), Amir Nizar Zuabi’s This is Who I Am (Woolly Mammoth, PlayCo, ART, Guthrie, and OSF), a workshop production of Adam Ashraf Elsayigh’s ALAA: A Family Trilogy (Golden Thread Productions), as well as work at Berkeley Rep, Geva, South Coast Rep, Kennedy Center, the Lark, Interact Theatre Company, Cleveland Public Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, and Magic Theatre, amongst many others. As a playwright and translator, he has been commissioned and produced by Cal Shakes, NYU Abu Dhabi, Golden Thread, Crowded Fire, and Custom Made. In 2023, he served as the Interim Artistic Director at OSF, where he had been the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming since 2019. At OSF, he was instrumental in “saving” the 2023 Season, led the programming of the 2024 Season, and oversaw the programming and producing of five repertory seasons, including more than 30 productions. Evren is a founder of Maia Directors, and serves on the Boards of Middle Eastern North African Theater Makers Alliance and Playwrights Foundation. His productions have been acknowledged by Critic’s picks and Best of the Year lists from SF Chronicle, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, WBUR, KQED, Bay Area Reporter, and SF Bay Times. Upcoming work includes Nia Akilah Robinson’s The Great Privation (How to flip five cents into a dollar) at Soho Rep, Eric Reyes Loo’s Simple Mexican Pleasures at New Conservatory Theater Center, Sanaz Toossi's English at the Alley Theatre, and workshops of Lauren Gunderson's Muse of Fire at Marin Shakes and his new work, Oriental: 1001 Ways to Tie Yourself in Knots at Golden Thread. 

Lisa Marie Rollins (assistant professor of Playwriting & Black Drama, Department of Performance, Play and Design at UCSC) is a writer, director, new work developer, and cultural visionary. She is a longtime theatermaker in the Bay Area community and a strong advocate for  uplifting theater makers in the Western Region as innovating visionary theater practices that impact the whole of American and International theater. She is a Member of Dramatist Guild and Stage Directors & Choreographers. She has been a writing resident with Djerassi, Hedgebrook, Joshua Tree Highlands Residency, CALLALOO London, VONA and more.  She received a Wallace Gerbode Playwright Award for a commission with Crowded Fire Theater for her new play KARA. She was honored with a “Bay Brilliant” artist award from San Francisco’s KQED, has been a Bay Area Rainin Arts Fellowship nominee and is the recipient of multiple grants for her playwriting and theater making work. Selected directing & dramaturg credits include Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, New York Stage and Film, Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Arizona Theater Company, Hedgebrook Women’s Play Festival, Crowded Fire Theater, American Conservatory Theatre SF, Magic Theatre, new work by Lauren Gunderson, Geetha Reddy, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm (DEMASCUS), and creative collaborations with comedic artist W. Kamau Bell (CNN). She has been a Literary Associate for Intiman Theater in Seattle, WA, and reads for juries & play selection panels around the country. She has been a Community Arts Panelist for Zellerbach Family Foundation and a Resident Artist with Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco.  She leads THE IRIS LAB, a new creative incubator, residency & research space for global majority & equity minded theater makers located right here at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

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