2008 - 2009
Silk Road Sojourns was a 11-episode video series, launched in 2008, that sought to connect new audiences with the artists and thinkers that inspire us. Aired on Chicago's CAN-TV (a Cable Access Network station) and streamed on Silk Road Rising's YouTube channel, the program established an easily-accessible forum from which we could share insights on creative processes while exploring the motivations and challenges inherent to telling a story. Featured guests included Silk Road playwrights who contextualized the world of their art within real-world political and cultural frameworks.
Read MorePresented by Gay Chicago Magazine
Awarded to Shishir Kurup
December 31, 2008
Gay Chicago Magazine's 2008 After Dark Award for Outstanding Adaptation was issued to playwright Shishir Kurup for Silk Road Theatre Project's production of "Merchant on Venice," directed by Stuart Carden.
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Read MoreWindy City Media Group
By Jonathan Abarbanel
December 31, 2008
Julia Cho's Durango, presented by Silk Road Theatre Project, addressed gay themes in an intimate family drama concerning conflicts between first- and second-generation Korean Americans; the pressure to succeed; and the emotional damage of living in the closet for both a father and a son.
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Read MoreNewcity Chicago
By Fabrizio O. Almeida
December 30, 2008
List of this year's "Top 5 New Plays" according to Newcity Chicago.
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Read MoreDecember 28, 2008
By Hedy Weiss
Theater Critic
Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat (Silk Road Theater Project): A sparkling cast nailed the diamond-cut dialogue in Yussef El Guindi's very contemporary play about terrorism, the media, ambition and sex.
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Read More2008 - Present
A tri-coastal initiative between San Francisco's Golden Thread Productions, New York's Lark Play Development Center, and Chicago's Silk Road Rising, Middle East America creates opportunities for American playwrights of Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds to challenge and expand representation of Middle Eastern peoples, and to better integrate their stories into the canon of American theatre. Playwrights nominated for Middle East America are vetted in a highly-competitive application process, and the winner receives both a cash commission and extensive developmentsupport as they write a new play.
Read MoreDecember 6, 2008
This exclusive event for Silk Road Theatre Project subscribers and donors featured an intimate conversation with Christopher Chen, playwright of Into the Numbers: A Play About Iris Chang, and Artistic Director Jamil Khoury.
Read MoreDecember 6–7, 2008
Written by Christopher Chen
Directed by Joanie Schultz
In 2004, Iris Chang, famed author of The Rape of Nanking, a chronicle of one of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century, committed suicide at the age of 36. Structured as an interview gone awry, Into the Numbers explores the philosophical and psychological implications of researching genocide, as well as the toll media saturation plays in the process. What begins as a standard lecture and interview soon descends into a surreal nightmare. Ghosts from Chang’s research appear and characters shift personas as the celebrated author tries desperately to find order in the midst of mental chaos.
Read MoreBest-selling author Iris Chang continues to inspire other writers even after, or maybe because of, her suicide four years ago. Last year saw the release of a book on Chang, written by a friend who had been a classmate of hers at the University of Illinois, and a feature-length documentary by a pair of Toronto-based filmmakers.
Read MoreWritten by Philip Kan Gotanda
The Midwest Premiere
Directed by Steve Scott
November 20 - November 23, 2008
Yohen became the first fully produced Silk Road production ever to transfer to a new venue. After an eight-week run and closing in Chicago, we packed it up and went to Meilly-Swallow Hall at North Central College in Naperville, IL.
Read MoreGay Chicago Magazine
By Venus Zarris
October 25, 2008
If there was any doubt in your mind that the Patriot Act might not be a heavy-handed invasion of our constitutional rights, Back of the Throat was the jolt of frightening certainty needed to eliminate that doubt by clarifying our dangerous reality. Not dangerous because of the external threat of terrorists, but dangerous because of the ravaging of our civil liberties that this current administration has implemented under the guise of homeland security.
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Read MoreOctober 11 and November 1, 2008
Written by Yusef Komunyakaa with Chad Gracia
Directed by Jennifer Shook
Music Direction by Robert Steel
Visual Design by Allie Herryman
The great Mesopotamian epic, the veritable Ur tale, is reimagined as a powerful verse play by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and New York University professor Yusef Komunyakaa in collaboration with dramaturg Chad Gracia. Infused with powerful drama and human longing, the play captures historical narrative through a contemporary yet seemingly timeless lens.
Read MoreChicago Reader
By Laura Molzahn
October 2, 2008
[Cultural] differences merely flavor this drama. The real subject is the emotional chasms between husbands and wives.
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Read MoreWriters write about themselves, we are told. Yet for reasons dictated by “the market” or the “mainstream” or the ever shifting parameters of “universality,” a writer’s subjectivity is often asked to realign itself...
Read MoreSilk Road Theatre Project
By Jamil Khoury
October 1, 2008
In aligning the lived with the enacted, Gotanda centers his life as a third generation Japanese American (“Sansei”) as the vantage point from which he writes plays, asserts a world view, and explores intersections with other communities, evidenced so poignantly in Yohen.
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