Busboys and Poets' Productions Presents a Free Staged Reading of Leila Buck's: In The Crossing
In 2006, Lebanese-American writer/performer Leila Buck was introducing her Jewish husband Adam to her family in Lebanon, war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, and the couple found themselves caught in the crossfire.
Now, several years and a trip to Israel later, they’ve been asked by Adam’s aunt to share their experiences at a conference of the “Society for Intercultural Dialogue and Education.” And you’re invited to join them.
Blurring the line between truth and fiction, theater and town hall, In The Crossing is an edge-of-your-seat live experience that probes the messy intersections of family and politics—the boundaries between us, and what happens when we choose to cross them.
“In The Crossing” began as a series of urgent emails written between air strikes that summer to friends and colleagues about what Leila and her husband were witnessing on the ground in Lebanon – a point of view less widely seen in American media coverage of the conflict.
Upon returning to New York, Leila began crafting a solo storytelling performance about their experience, doing readings across the U.S. with support from the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Epic, the Lark, Theater J, Queens Theatre in the Park, and a host of conferences and cultural centers from the Brooklyn Museum to Chautauqua Institution, which culminated in a mini-run with Culture Project’s Women Center Stage.
In the talkbacks that followed each reading, Leila quickly realized that the most palpable conflict in the room was that amongst the audience about how she should tell her story – whether it was fair, biased, or even irresponsible – and the questions this raised for her as a playwright and performer. So she decided to write that journey into the play – adding other actors to represent these dissenting voices and her own struggle amidst them to find and hold her own.
Through a unique and constantly evolving structure that combines storytelling, dramatic scenes, and structured improvisation, the audience is invited to become the fifth character in the play, whose responses, questions, and participation help shape a continually evolving journey.
Leila Buck is a Lebanese American writer, performer and teaching artist. Her award-winning solo show, ISite, toured the U.S., Europe and China for more than ten years, and is published inFour Arab American Plays. Her latest play Hkeelee (Talk to Me), developed with the Public Theater and Culture Projects Women Center Stage, received the Special Jury Prize from the Middle East America grant. Her shorter plays include ONE, performed for Epic Theatre Center alongside works by Craig Lucas, Neil LaBute, and Tony Kushner. Her theatrical work has been featured in The New York Times and American Theatre magazine, and in Etching Our Own Image: Voices from the Arab American Art Movement.
As an actress Leila’s work includes the New York Theatre Workshop production and international tour of ‘Aftermath’, based on the stories of Iraqi refugees (Drama League nomination), and the American premiere of SCORCHED by Wajdi Mouawad (Wilma Theatre – Barrymore Award).
Leila has taught storytelling and drama for cross-cultural engagement at conferences, universities, schools and cultural centers across the U.S. and around the world, including as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy. In 2014-15 she will be artist-in-residence at Wesleyan University through Doris Duke Foundation’s Building Bridges grant.
Leila holds a Master’s in Educational Theatre and Middle East Studies from NYU. She is a member of the Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater and a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop.
A free staged reading of Leila Buck’s: In The Crossing will take place on Monday May 12th, 7:30pm, at the Mead Theatre at Studio Theatre (14th St. and P Street, Washington DC.).
The play is directed and developed with Shana Gold Featuring Adam Abel, Leila Buck, Sara Buffamanti and Kathryn Kates.
Arab America