In partnership with our New Jersey Women Playwrights Program, internationally acclaimed playwright Yasmine Rana has created a play about the healing power of dance.
The women at the barre tell their stories and discover inspiration and empowerment in the sacred space of a ballet barre class in New York City. This beginner class is diverse in body size and age with the youngest being nineteen and the eldest, eighty. Their life experiences include sexual assault, breast cancer, an arranged marriage, the deportation of a spouse, and war in Syria. Their cultural identities include Russian, Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, and Central American. Despite their differences in age and life, they are unified by their desire and need to embrace and express themselves through their bodies. With the advent of movements including Me Too and DACA, the women at the barre share moments of warmth, humor, and encouragement at a most relevant time in history.
April 27 (Sa) @ 4:30 pm
Tickets: $10 (free with valid Drew ID, all other students $5.00)
About the Playwright
Yasmine Beverly Rana’s latest play, After Rome was produced at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem (2022). This year, she was the cover story of 201 Magazine’s The Arts Issue. Plays have been developed and presented at theaters including Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Writers Theatre of New Jersey, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Tara Arts of London, among others. Fellowships and grants include a NJ State Council on the Arts TRANSITional Art Project, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Award in Playwriting, and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship. The War Zone is My Bed was a Francesca Primus Prize finalist. Publications include The Pirandello Society of America Journal, The Alabama Literary Review, Blackbird, The Contemporary European Idea, The Kenyon Review, Lilith, TDR: The Drama Review, and numerous anthologies. The University of Chicago Press and Seagull Books "In Performance Series" anthologized four of Yasmine’s plays in The War Zone is My Bed and Other Plays.