Productions
First as Silk Road Theatre Project and now as Silk Road Rising, our company has been regaling Chicago audiences with full-length stage plays since 2003. The plays we produce are written by playwrights of Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds and feature protagonists, or central characters, of Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds.
In 2006, we were officially named the professional theatre-in-residence at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple (77 W Washington St, Chicago, IL), a collaboration that began back in 2003 shortly after our inaugural production. What emerged over time is a unique and dynamic partnership between a religious institution and a secular arts organization. To learn more, watch Sacred Stages: A Church, A Theatre, and A Story.
Please note that most of our productions are performed in our intimate, 85-seat theatre venue in Pierce Hall on the lower level of the Chicago Temple. The venues for performances that occurred at other locations, or in other spaces within the church building, are indicated.
Our production history is as follows (beginning with our most recent production and ending with our first production).
March 11–April 7, 2019
Detour Guide
Written and Performed by Karim Nagi
Directed by Anna C. Bahow
Co-Produced with Stage Left Theatre
This one-man musical, co-produced with Stage Left Theatre, takes us on an alternative tour of the Arab World & Arab America. Using lyrics, percussion & an urban soundscape, master storyteller and musician Karim Nagi guides us through a social and political labyrinth, extolling the virtues of revolution, immigration, and hummus along the way.
November 30–December 11, 2018
Christmas Mubarak
A Workshop Production
Adapted and Directed by Corey Pond
Music Direction by Emma Hospelhorn
Choir Direction by Erik Nussbaum
Christmas Mubarak is a first-of-its-kind musical / theatre interplay of the Quranic and New Testament stories that celebrate the miraculous birth of Jesus as told by Muslims and Christians. This festive holiday performance features actors from our Silk Road communities and choir members from the First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple.
May 17–27, 2018
Hollow/Wave
A Workshop Production
Written and Performed by Anu Bhatt
Directed by Barbara Zahora
Anu Bhatt combines the personal with the poetic in her new one-woman show about depression, body image, and confronting sexual abuse. Seeking to balance and embrace two identities, Bhatt explores her South Asian American background with courage and insightful humor. A mix of raw memories, lyricism and tough truths, Hollow/Wave is a daring dance for empowerment through a sea of imperfection.
March 7–April 15, 2018
Through the Elevated Line
The World Premiere
Written by Novid Parsi
Directed by Carin Silkaitis
Having fled Iran where he was imprisoned for being a gay man, a damaged Razi arrives at his sister's doorstep in Chicago only to disrupt the life she and her American husband built together. As the Chicago Cubs vie to make history, rivalries of a different kind simmer in the Uptown two-flat that Razi tries to call home. With echoes of A Streetcar Named Desire, Novid Parsi's world premiere drama probes the boundaries between family, loss, prejudice, and desire.
November 9–December 17, 2017
Wild Boar
The US Premiere
Written by Candace Chong
Translated from Chinese to English by Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith
Adapted by David Henry Hwang
Directed by Helen Young
A gripping investigation of journalistic integrity, city planning, and social conscience,Wild Boar is a new play from one of Hong Kong’s most acclaimed playwrights. When a controversial professor goes missing, an editor and his student band together to publicize the truth. Old flames spark and friendships are tested in this turbulent thriller about media manipulation, fake news, and who gets to speak for the poor.
May 11–July 2, 2017
Great Expectations
The US Premiere
A Co-Production with Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Written by Charles Dickens
Adapted by Tanika Gupta
Co-Directed by Lavina Jadhwani and Nick Sandys
Dickens’ beloved tale of aspiration, intrigue, and romance is thrillingly transplanted to a colonized India by award-winning British Bengali playwright Tanika Gupta. When Indian orphan Pip receives a mysterious inheritance, he must choose between his humble rural life and the city life of an English “gentleman.” In a vibrant clash of cultures, classes, and conscience, Gupta's brilliant adaptation expands Dickens' enduring question: Is it worth losing who you are for who you might become?
December 1–23, 2016
Christmas at Christine's
The World Premiere
Written and Performed by Christine Bunuan
Directed by J.R. Sullivan
Musical Direction by Ryan Brewster
This new holiday musical revue puts a Silk Road spin on the Christmas season. Chicago favorite Christine Bunuan invites you into her world with Christmas at Christine's. Journey from California to Chicago to the Philippines to a Catholic-Jewish household as Christine sings her way through the holiday songbook and a lifetime of yuletide memories.
September 6–25, 2016
Ultra American: A Patriot Act
The World Premiere
Written and Performed by Azhar Usman
Directed by Aaron Todd Douglas
Famed comedian, Azhar Usman, takes to the stage with this brutally honest, unflinching one-man show exploring the tensions and paradoxes surrounding the double consciousness of Muslim Americans living in an ever-polarizing modern world.
March 24–May 15, 2016
Mosque Alert
The World Premiere
Written by Jamil Khoury
Directed by Edward Torres
Inspired by the Ground Zero Mosque controversy in New York City, Mosque Alert tells the story of three fictional families living in Naperville, Illinois, whose lives are interrupted by a proposed Islamic Center on the site of a beloved local landmark. Mosque Alert explores the intersections of zoning and Islamophobia with humor, family drama, and refreshingly blunt honesty.
February 18–28, 2016
Ziryab, the Songbird of Andalusia
The World Premiere
Written and Performed by Ronnie Malley
Directed by Anna C. Bahow
Take an enchanting musical journey back to 9th century Islamic Spain with Muslim American musical impresario Ronnie Malley. Arabic music, poetry, and songs breathe life into the story of Ziryab, a former slave whose musical abilities brought him fame throughout Al-Andalus: a land where Christians, Jews and Muslims co-existed for over seven centuries and created a unique and diverse society.
November 19–22, 2015
My American Cousin
A Workshop Production
Written and Performed by Jameeleh Shelo
Directed by Jessica Mitolo
Through a diverse group of characters, this sketch comedy show offers a lovable view into the life of a Middle Eastern American woman from the South Side of Chicago as she navigates her way through cultural pressures and societal assumptions. What happens when the Mid-East meets the Mid-West? The answers will fill you with laughter and joy!
October 1–4, 2015
Yellow Dress
A Workshop Production
Written and Performed by Marissa Lichwick
Directed by Lavina Jadhwani
Born out of her experiences growing up as a Korean-adoptee in a family of ten in upstate New York, this coming-of-age, one-woman show follows two orphans through the streets of South Korea, into the suburban American heartland, and their fortuitous journey back. Back to Korea, back to their past.
August 13–16, 2015
A Great Dive
A Workshop Production
Written and Performed by Puja Mohindra
Directed by Andrew Volkoff
Geeta Gidwani doesn’t want the arranged marriage her parents have. She’s an American girl and wants to fall madly in love, like she’s seen in Shakespeare, Bollywood movies, and her favorite show, Friends. But after a family trip to a holy Indian temple inspires her to wish for a soulmate, she meets Manish, standing at the corner of tradition and fairytale.
June 11–14, 2015
Unveiled
Written and Performed by Rohina Malik
Co-Directed by Wayne Maugans and Nick Westemeyer
Racism. Hate crimes. Love. Islam. Culture. Language. Life. Five Muslim women in a post-9/11 world serve tea and uncover what lies beneath the veil in this compelling one-woman show.
April 23–26, 2015
Muthaland
A Workshop Production
Written and Performed by Minita Gandhi
Directed by Heidi Stillman
The life of a young Indian American woman is forever changed when, on a retreat to her homeland, she unearths family secrets, encounters a prophet, and ultimately discovers her own voice. The familiar and the foreign swap roles in this dark comedy about culture, identity, spirituality, and sexuality.
February 19–22, 2015
No Place Called Home
The Chicago Premiere
Written and Performed by Kim Schultz
Original Production Directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde
Falling in love with an Iraqi refugee was never part of Kim Schultz’s plan, but a man named Omar changed all that. No Place Called Home is that unexpected story—a story about an American woman and an Iraqi man, a story about one refugee in 2 million, a story that isn’t supposed to be a love story.
October 16–November 23, 2014
The Hundred Flowers Project
The Midwest Premiere
Written by Christopher Chen
Directed by Joanie Schultz
Digital media becomes the perfect "ally" for a group of actors collectively creating a play about Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution. As their work-in-progress starts morphing into a propaganda play about the play itself, disturbing questions arise as to who, or what, is controlling the narrative.
March 27–May 4, 2014
Brahman/i
The Chicago Premiere
A Co-Production with About Face Theatre
Written by Aditi Brennan Kapil
Directed by Andrew Volkoff
In this provocative play masquerading as a stand-up comedy routine, an Indian intersex person explores history, mythology, gender roles... and high school. Brahman/i–funny, cynical, inventive and intensely charismatic–takes on more than a dozen unforgettable characters in a fascinating life story that most of us can barely even begin to imagine.
November 7–December 15, 2013
Paulus
The World Premiere
Written by Motti Lerner
Translated from Hebrew to English by Hillel Halkin
Directed by Jimmy McDermott
A compassionate but wary 62-year-old Jesus and an egomaniacal Emperor Nero torment the ailing psyche of the Apostle Paul as he struggles to universalize monotheism against fierce opposition from a Jewish religious establishment threatened with spiritual extinction.
July 30–September 15, 2013
Invasion!
The Midwest Premiere
Written by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Translated from Swedish to English by Rachel Willson-Broyles
Directed by Anna C. Bahow
Invasion! is a tornado of words, images and ideas, all centered around a magical name: Abulkasem. The play assaults our deepest prejudices about culture, race and language. At once hilarious, disturbing and poignant, this mischievously subversive play deconstructs a “threatening” identity–the Arab male–and forces us to confront our own complicated identities.
April 23–May 26, 2013
The Lake Effect
The World Premiere
Written by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Timothy Douglas
In a depressed Cleveland neighborhood amidst a fierce winter storm, an Indian American brother and sister, long estranged, are reunited by the sudden death of their father. Enter their late father’s African American confidante and gambling bookie, and a slew of family secrets get unearthed. The Lake Effect sets in motion a complicated web of relationships and conflicts that challenge our perceptions of race, gender, and success.
October 9–November 11, 2012
Night Over Erzinga
A Rolling World Premiere
Written by Adriana Sevahn Nichols
Directed by Lisa Portes
Spanning from the Ottoman Empire to New York City, and three generations of an Armenian and Dominican family, Adriana Sevahn Nichols' Night Over Erzinga explores how a man can lose everything but his heart, and how a grandmother can reach through time, unearth an untold story, and bring her children “home.” From collective tragedy to personal triumph, ancestors reunite with the living in a breathtakingly beautiful journey toward making peace with the past and reclaiming one’s heritage.
April 4–May 6, 2012
Re-Spiced: A Silk Road Cabaret
The World Premiere
Conceived and Curated by Jamil Khoury
Directed by Steve Scott
Musical Direction by Ryan Brewster
Additional Performance on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at Center for Performing Arts, Governors State University, 1 University Parkway, University Park, IL
Re-Spiced: A Silk Road Cabaret is a playful, sexy, occasionally subversive, always entertaining, musical pastiche of Asian and Middle Eastern images in American and British song and verse. From Broadway show tunes to pop, from country to rap, folk to rock, poetry to prose, Re-Spiced turns the tables on “us” and “them” with panache and glee and leaves us wondering just who’s who?
June 14–July 31, 2011
Yellow Face
The Chicago Premiere
Presented in Association with Goodman Theatre
Written by David Henry Hwang
Directed by Steve Scott
A revealing backstage comedy from the Tony Award-winning author of M. Butterfly, this ferociously funny, utterly unreliable memoir chronicles David Henry Hwang's struggle to define racial identity in the mixed-up melting pot of contemporary America. Part fact, part fiction, Yellow Face explores the pitfalls and promise of our "PC" world.
October 6–November 21, 2010
Scorched
The Chicago Premiere
Written by Wajdi Mouawad
Translated from French to English by Linda Gaboriau
Directed by Dale Heinen
Carried aloft by poetic language and evocative imagery, Scorched unfolds in a dreamlike atmosphere connecting the origins of one family in startling and unforgettable ways. A brother and sister raised in Quebec must return to their mother’s war-torn country to carry out her last wishes–find the father and brother they never knew they had.
March 2–April 4, 2010
The DNA Trail: A Genealogy of Short Plays about Ancestry, Identity, and Utter Confusion
The World Premiere
Presented in Association with Goodman Theatre
Conceived by Jamil Khoury
Featuring Plays by Philip Kan Gotanda, Velina Hasu Houston, David Henry Hwang, Jamil Khoury, Shishir Kurup, Lina Patel, and Elizabeth Wong
Directed by Steve Scott
Additional Performance on Saturday, January 22, 2011 at Bovard Auditorium, University of Southern California, 3551 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA
Theatre meets science when a diverse group of playwrights each agree to take a genealogical DNA test and revisit their assumptions about identity, politics and the perennial "who am I" question. Self, family, community, and ethnicity are all up for grabs.
October 21–November 1, 2009
Silk Road Cabaret: Broadway Sings the Silk Road
The World Premiere
Conceived and Curated by Jamil Khoury
Directed by Elizabeth Margolius
Musical Direction by Gary Powell
Silk Road Cabaret: Broadway Sings the Silk Road features songs from popular Broadway musicals set along the Silk Road—from Pacific Overtures to Two Gentlemen of Verona to Jesus Christ Superstar to The King and I to Zorba to Miss Saigon, and many more in between. This bold and harmonious East-West interplay blends music with personal stories and showcases performers of diverse backgrounds as they claim, reclaim, subvert, and poke fun at a host of old favorites from the Broadway repertoire.
March 19–May 10, 2009
Pangs of the Messiah
The Midwest Premiere
Written by Motti Lerner
Translated from Hebrew to English by Anthony Berris
Directed by Jennifer Green
Set in 2012 amidst the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, Motti Lerner’s Pangs of the Messiah is an apocalyptic yet fiercely humane drama about eight West Bank Jewish settlers pitted against an Israel they feel has betrayed them. The play focuses on a religious family that finds itself torn between fighting to stay in their settlement and obeying their government’s decision to dismantle it. Left hanging in the balance is the legacy of their beliefs.
September 18–November 2, 2008
Yohen
The Midwest Premiere
Presented in Association with Goodman Theatre
Written by Philip Kan Gotanda
Directed by Steve Scott
Additional Performances Thursday, November 20 through Sunday, November 23, 2008, at Meiley-Swallow Hall, North Central College, 31 S Ellsworth St, Naperville, IL
A divorced Japanese woman and an African American GI meet in post-World War II Japan and fall in love. After decades of struggle, they have found an accepting Los Angeles suburb to call home—but their peaceful world is changing. More than a study of clashing cultures, Yohen is the poetic, resonant story of two partners who discover that intimate relationships change with environments and that love, however time-tested, is never constant.
May 1–June 15, 2008
Durango
The Midwest Premiere
Written by Julia Cho
Directed by Carlos Murillo
To the outside world, the Lee boys look like the perfect Korean American sons: Isaac plans to be a doctor and his younger brother, Jimmy, is a champion swimmer with a bright future. But when their widowed father, Boo-Seng, decides to take them on a road trip to Durango, Colorado, all three find themselves grappling with old memories and unhealed wounds.
February 21–March 30, 2008
Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat
The World Premiere
Written by Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Patrizia Lombardi Acerra
A darkly humorous and sensual look at identity, media-representation, love, and lust in the Arab American community. Fueled by frustration over the limited Arab voices in the US media, a struggling writer, Gamal, engages in a prank campaign to shake up the system. But those in power have a way of turning the tables. When Gamal's lover, Noor, is convinced by a prominent publisher to alter her novel to satisfy Western hunger for "Orientalist" fare, Gamal lashes out at his own community. The results are staggering.
September 15–November 18, 2007
Merchant on Venice
The World Premiere
Written by Shishir Kurup
Directed by Stuart Carden
In Shishir Kurup’s Merchant on Venice, Venice, Italy intersects with L.A.’s Venice Boulevard in a wickedly funny, wildly inventive and politically provocative re-imagining of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Written in iambic pentameter and vividly colored by Indian, American, and Latinx pop references, playwright Kurup transforms Shakespeare’s original by injecting the story with Bollywood musical numbers, L.A. Punk, Hindu-Muslim tensions, and a distinctly American landscape.
March 1–May 6, 2007
Golden Child
The Midwest Premiere
Written by David Henry Hwang
Directed by Stuart Carden
Set in China in the early 1900's, the Obie Award winning Golden Child tells the story of Eng Tieng-Bin, a wealthy merchant who returns from abroad filled with Western ideas, Christian beliefs, and hopes of liberating China from its superstitious past.
October 7–November 26, 2006
Caravaggio
The World Premiere
Written by Richard Vetere
Directed by Dale Heinen
Set in 17th century Rome, Malta, and Naples, Caravaggio is the story of the great Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the father of the Baroque, whose daring art and volatile personality attracted the favor and wrath of the church he both loved and reviled.
April 4–May 28, 2006
Back of the Throat
The Midwest Premiere
Written by Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Stuart Carden
Two government officials pay an Arab American man, Khalid, a seemingly innocuous visit. What begins as a "friendly" inquiry soon devolves into a chilling, full-blown investigation of Khalid's presumed ties to terrorists.
October 13–December 30, 2005
Performed in James Parlor, Chicago Temple
Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith
The World Premiere
Written by Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Stuart Carden
See the Fawzis, an Egyptian immigrant family in southern California struggling to find their place within American society. Marvel as they painstakingly navigate inter-generational conflict, their Islamic faith, and the values of two cultures.
July 18, 2003–April 20, 2005
Performed in 16 venues across the US
Precious Stones: The College Tour
Written by Jamil Khoury
Directed by Gregory Gerhard, Gail Dartez, Anna C. Bahow, and Justin D.M. Palmer
Precious Stones boldly examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the "safe" yet turbulent terrain of American Diaspora. Set in Chicago in 1989, the story unfolds against a backdrop of disturbing images, as the First Palestinian Intifadah rages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Two women, one Jewish and one Palestinian, join forces to organize an Arab-Jewish dialogue group, only to find themselves falling in love. As they each cross "enemy lines," they stumble upon the disputed territories of sexuality and class.
January 14–February 29, 2004
Performed at Loop Theatre, 8 E Randolph St, Chicago, IL
Tea
The Midwest Premiere
Written by Velina Hasu Houston
Directed by Lynn Ann Bernatowicz
Set in 1950's small town Kansas, Tea tells the story of four women who come together to clean the house of a fifth after her tragic suicide upsets the balance of life in their small Japanese immigrant community. The spirit of the dead woman returns as a ghostly ringmaster to force the women to come to terms with the disquieting tension of their lives and find common ground. Her destiny requires she escape the limbo between life and death, and move on to the next world in peace, carving a future passage for the others.
January 16–March 2, 2003
Performed at Studio Theatre, Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E Washington St, Chicago, IL
Precious Stones
The World Premiere
Written by Jamil Khoury
Directed by Michael Malek Najjar
Precious Stones boldly examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the "safe" yet turbulent terrain of American Diaspora. Set in Chicago in 1989, the story unfolds against a backdrop of disturbing images, as the First Palestinian Intifadah rages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Two women, one Jewish and one Palestinian, join forces to organize an Arab-Jewish dialogue group, only to find themselves falling in love. As they each cross "enemy lines," they stumble upon the disputed territories of sexuality and class.