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When Their Show Was Postponed, a Playwright and Cast Turned to Poetry

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Samuel R. Delany

Jonathan Bailey

Piet Oudolf

Beanie Feldstein

Daniel Roseberry

Radha Blank

Katerina Tannenbaum

Ethan Hawke

Christopher John Rogers

Katie Stout

Raja Feather Kelly

Aleshea Harris and Whitney White

Jamie Nares

Saweetie

Patricia Urquiola

Rirkrit Tiravanija

Faith Ringgold

Louise Erdrich

Sheila Hicks

Virginie Viard

Tschabalala Self

Jordan Casteel

Toshiko Mori

Caroline Polachek

Daniel Romualdez

Ivo van Hove

Pim Techamuanvivit

Pierre Hardy

James Whiteside

Mona Mansour

Chika

Manuel Solano

Kid Cudi

Playwright

Mona Mansour

Reciting Poetry With the Cast of Her Play

Mansour (reading, at center), 56, photographed with the actors (from left) Rudy Roushdi, Nadine Malouf, Tala Ashe, Hadi Tabbal, Osh Ashruf, Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, Bassam Abdelfattah and Ramsey Faragallah at the Library at the Public Theater in NoHo, Manhattan, on Jan. 24, 2022.

Chase Middleton

When Their Show Was Postponed, a Playwright and Cast Turned to Poetry

Two years ago, on what was meant to be opening night of “The Vagrant Trilogy,” Mona Mansour hosted the first of many readings with her colleagues.

April 21, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

Listen to Mansour read a version of this story.

My show “The Vagrant Trilogy” is a conditional trilogy — a bit like the movie “Sliding Doors” (1998). In the first play, a young man and his wife travel from Palestine to London for a conference. Then the 1967 Arab-Israeli war breaks out, and they have to decide what to do. What follows are two different versions of what happens. The play’s about what’s lost when you leave and the idea that, once you do, you’re never really going to be of the place you came from — or the one you’ve gone to. The production was meant to be put on at the Public Theater in New York in the spring of 2020, but Covid-19 intervened. We left the theater and our stuff, thinking, like so many others, that we’d be back soon. It was an odd thing to happen in the middle of a show about displaced people. By no means am I comparing what we went through to the fate of refugees, but it gave us a taste of that kind of stasis and lack of agency, that Chekhovian sort of waiting.

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24 Hours in the Creative Life

Continue Reading

This photo was taken on the first day we were all together in person since that last rehearsal — the show is now set to open April 25 — so it was this self-conscious moment because we’d been talking about our reunion for so long. In theater, the word “family” gets thrown around a lot, and I usually bristle at that, but with this group, it’s apt. It’s partly because we feel connected by the material; almost everyone involved is either the child of someone who left their homeland or is someone who left themselves. And partly it’s because, on what was meant to be our opening night, we met up on Zoom for what became the first of many poetry readings. “Kindness” (1980), by the Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye, became our liturgy — we had a different person read it each time — and people brought other poems, too. After some of them were read, there was just silence.

I tend to be a more extroverted writer. I like to improvise potential scenes with actors, which gives me some raw material and a sense of the group dynamic. I’ve had playwriting advisers say things like, “You need to write an actor-proof play.” But I fully believe that the people in the room and the way they are together are part of the whole thing.

Another lesson I’ve learned is to be someone whom people want to be around. There was a time in my 20s when I was trying to be disaffected, but it doesn’t behoove you to act uninterested, unless you actually are, and in that case, why are you there? At a certain point, you let go of the idea of what an artist should be.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photo assistant: Nate Jerome

The Artists

A glimpse into how creative people live and work, from dawn to dusk to the early morning hours.

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Samuel R. Delany

Writer
6 a.m.

Jonathan Bailey

Actor
7 a.m.

Piet Oudolf

Garden Designer
8 a.m.

Beanie Feldstein

Actor
8 a.m.

Daniel Roseberry

Fashion Designer
9 a.m.

Radha Blank

Writer and Filmmaker
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Katerina Tannenbaum

Actor
10 a.m.

Ethan Hawke

Actor
10 a.m.

Christopher John Rogers

Fashion Designer
11 a.m.

Katie Stout

Artist and Furniture Designer
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Raja Feather Kelly

Choreographer
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Aleshea Harris and Whitney White

Playwright and Director
12 p.m.

Jamie Nares

Multidisciplinary Artist
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Saweetie

Rapper
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Patricia Urquiola

Architect and Industrial Designer
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Rirkrit Tiravanija

Artist
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Faith Ringgold

Artist
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Louise Erdrich

Writer
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Sheila Hicks

Artist
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Virginie Viard

Fashion Designer
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Tschabalala Self

Artist
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Jordan Casteel

Artist
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Toshiko Mori

Architect
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Caroline Polachek

Singer-Songwriter
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Daniel Romualdez

Architect and Decorator
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Ivo van Hove

Director
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Pim Techamuanvivit

Chef
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Pierre Hardy

Accessories Designer
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James Whiteside

Ballet Dancer
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Mona Mansour

Playwright
11 p.m.

Chika

Rapper
12 a.m.

Manuel Solano

Artist
1 a.m.

Kid Cudi

Musician and Actor

Source: Theater - nytimes.com


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