All That Chat - Play Company premieres Jonas Hassen Khemiri's "I Call My Brothers," Jan 22

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Play Company premieres Jonas Hassen Khemiri's "I Call My Brothers," Jan 22

Posted by:	Official_Press_Release 08:09 am EST 01/17/14

THE PLAY COMPANY TO PRESENT THE U.S. PREMIERE OF JONAS HASSEN KHEMIRI’S I CALL MY BROTHERS, DIRECTED BY ERICA SCHMIDT, JAN 22–FEB 23, 2014 Production Reunites the Creative Team of PlayCo’s Highly Acclaimed 2011 Premiere of Khemiri’s Invasion!, Which Won Him an OBIE for Playwriting The Play Company Presents I Call My Brothers (U.S. Premiere) Written by Jonas Hassen Khemiri Directed by Erica Schmidt Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles Starring Dahlia Azama, Francis Benhamou Damon Owlia, Rachid Sabitri Performances: January 22–25, 28,–31 and February 1, 3, 5–8 10, 12–15, 17, 19–22 at 7:30 p.m. January 25 and February 1, 2, 8, 15, 22 at 2:00 p.m. January 26 and February 9, 16, 23 at 4:00 p.m. Press Previews: Thu, January 30–Sat, February 1 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, February 1 at 2:00 p.m. Official Opening: Sun, February 2 at 2:00 p.m. The New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street) Tickets: $25-40 at playco.org or 866.811.4111 70 minutes, no intermission NEW YORK, NY — The Play Company (PlayCo) presents the U.S. premiere of I Call My Brothers, a bold new work about race, suspicion and identity by celebrated young Swedish writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri. Running January 22–February 23 at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street), the production continues PlayCo’s relationship with both Khemiri and director Erica Schmidt, whose multiple collaborations with the company include the Obie-winning 2011 premiere of Khemiri’s Invasion! With I Call My Brothers, Khemiri moves to even more powerful and personal terrain, spinning a bold story out of a tragic event and asking: “What happens when we start to see ourselves as others see us?” Tickets for I Call My Brothers, $30-40, can be purchased at www.playco.org or 866.811.4111. See above for a schedule of performances. Critics are welcome as of Thursday, January 30 for an official opening on Sunday, February 2. The day after a car bombing, Amor has an important errand to run. He walks the city streets with his backpack and his cell phone, doing his best to blend in. But what looks normal? For 24 intense hours inside Amor's head, the lines between criminal and victim, fantasy and reality, become increasingly unreliable. I Call My Brothers is a funny and fierce showdown with prejudice and paranoia. The play has its origins in a piece Khemiri published in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in December 2010, one week after the suicide bombing in Stockholm. Khemiri later developed this brief response into a full-length novel, which was adapted for the stage in 2013. The work toured Sweden with Riksteatern and was performed in London at the Arcola Theater. Following up on these themes, Khemiri wrote an open letter in 2013 to Sweden’s Minister for Justice, Beatrice Ask, challenging her defense of racial profiling. The article made history as the most shared article ever in Sweden. It was subsequently published in The New York Times and International Herald Tribune. Rachel Willson-Broyles has written the English translation of Khemiri’s original Swedish text; PlayCo also commissioned her prior translation of Invasion!, and she has translated other plays, novels and short stories by the author. The design team includes Daniel Zimmerman (set), Jessica Pabst (costumes) Jeff Croiter (lighting) and Bart Fasbender (sound). While I Call My Brothers features the same writer/director creative team—and a similar engagement with current events and larger questions such as identity and perception— as Invasion!, the new work differs in structure and tone. While Invasion! began with a jolting coup de théâtre and unfolded as a chain of mostly comical scenes, I Call My Brothers follows a more direct narrative arc and is as poignant as it is humorous. I Call My Brothers exemplifies the unique work of PlayCo, which is led by Founding Producer Kate Loewald and Executive Producer Lauren Weigel. PlayCo creates new productions—often first English-language productions, with translations commissioned by the company—of plays from around the world, including the U.S., to advance a dynamic, international experience of contemporary theater as part of the American repertoire. The New York-based company has garnered awards and critical acclaim for its productions of works by Toshiki Okada (Japan), Roland Schimmelpfennig (Germany), Vijay Tendulkar (India), Lloyd Suh (U.S.) and the Presnyakov Brothers (Russia), among many others. About the Artists Jonas Hassen Khemiri, born in Sweden in 1978, is the author of three novels and six plays. His first novel, One Eye Red, received the Borås Tidning award for best literary debut. His second novel, Montecore, (published in the U.S. by Knopf in 2011) won several literary awards including the Swedish Radio Award for best novel of the year. Khemiri’s works have been translated into more than fifteen languages and over 40 international companies have performed his plays. In 2011 Invasion! premiered in New York and earned Khemiri an Obie Award for playwriting. Erica Schmidt is a director whose credits with The Play Company include Invasion! (The Play Company at Walker Space and The Flea) and Trust (the Play Company at Theatre Row, Callaway Award nominee); Taking Care of Baby (MTC); Honey Brown Eyes (The Working Theater); The Burnt Part Boys (The Vineyard and New York Stage and Film); Humor Abuse (co-creator with performer Lorenzo Pisoni at Manhattan Theatre Club, winner: Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics, Drama Desk and Obie Award also CTG, ACT, Philadelphia Theatre Company and Seattle Rep); Rent (Tokyo); Moliere's Imaginary Invalid, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer and Copland's The Tender Land (all at Bard Summer Scape); Mezzulah, 1946 (Pittsburgh City Theatre);Carnival (The Paper Mill Playhouse); People Be Heard (Playwrights Horizons); As You Like It (The Public Theater/NYSF, chashama and New York International Fringe Festival 2000 Winner for Best Direction); Debbie Does Dallas (wrote the adaptation and directed Off-Broadway at the Jane Street); Spanish Girl (Second Stage Uptown); slag heap (The Cherry Lane Alternative); Romeo and Juliet (Outdoor Garage) and The White Devil and Don't Blink (The Directors Company). Schmidt received a Princess Grace Award in 2001. Rachel Willson-Broyles is a freelance translator specializing in literature. She received her Ph.D. in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013. Her dissertation is titled Cultural Untranslatability in Swedish-English Literary Translation in the Age of the Internet. Wilson-Broyles received her BA in Scandinavian Studies from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2002 and her MA in Scandinavian Studies from UW-Madison in 2007. Dahlia Azama (Valeria, and others) recently graduated from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Credits include: Isabel in The Isabel Who Disappeared, Masha in Three Sisters, Katherine in Taming of the Shrew and Agnes in The School for Wives. Francis Benhamou (Ahlem, and others) is an actress whose recent Off-Broadway theater credits include: Motel Cherry (ClubbedThumb/ New Georges prod.), both productions of the Obie Award-winning play Invasion! (The Play Company) and Robert Shaw's production of Three Women (59E59). Recent film credits include: the upcoming film Listen Up Phillip, Big Words, My Last day without you, Breaking Upwards, Neal Cassady, and the award-winning film Arranged. Benhamou graduated from NYU with a B.A. in Psychology and a concentration in Acting. She went on to complete the two-year program at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. Damon Owlia (Amor) is an actor, writer, producer and director. Past theater credits include: Nothing Left to Burn (Ars Nova/The Public Theater); Ka (The Brick); Skin of our Teeth (Michael Howard Studios). Past film credits include: Day Ten, Dutch Kills, Sounds of Oud, and Gem St. Over the past three years, Owlia has also collaborated with the Drama Desk-nominated company Waterwell,and served as Assistant Director and Associate Producer for their most recent production, GOODBAR (Ideal Glass/The Public Theater). Additionally, Owlia served as Creative Director over the past two years for the Goldman Entertainment Group, an entertainment consulting company with a focus on the development of new talent in the areas of film and television. Owlia is currently working on the debut feature film from Tony-nominated actor, director and writer Arian Moayed, entitled This Island Made Me, slated for production in 2014. Rachid Sabitri (Shavi, and others) most recently appeared in Bubble Boy the Musical for the American Theatre Group and in the staged reading of A Nice Indian Boy at the Old Globe in San Diego. His other US theater credits include: Twelfth Night (Westport Country Playhouse) Rafta, Rafta (The Old Globe) and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (La Mirada Playhouse). UK credits include: Rafta Rafta (National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, director), Romeo and Juliet (West End), Beyond Midnight (Edinburgh Festival), Twelfth Night (Northampton Theatre Royal), Beautiful Thing and Bloodtide, (both at York Theatre Royal), Tangier Tattoo (Glydenbourne Opera House). Television credits include Generation Kill (HBO); The Odds (pilot, CBS); Dr. Who, Casualty, Wannabes and Family Business (BBC); The Walk and Blue Murder (Granada TV); and The Bill (Thames Television). Sabitri has also had an extensive voiceover career, working ADR on several Hollywood movies as well a being a regular character on the BBC radio soap Silver Street. About The Play Company (PlayCo) The Play Company is an OBIE Award-winning Off Broadway theater production company. Now in its fourteenth season, PlayCo has produced 23 new plays from the United States, Germany, Russia, Romania, Poland, Sweden, Japan, India, Mexico, France, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England. PlayCo develops and produces adventurous new plays from the U.S. and around the world, advancing a dynamic global experience of contemporary theater and expanding the American theater repertoire. As the only New York company regularly producing outstanding contemporary plays from around the world alongside new American work, PlayCo’s distinctive international programming links American theatre with world theater, American artists with the global creative community, and American audiences with a whole world of plays.

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