A Benefit For The Children Of Gaza
Two Staged Reading Performances
of
PALESTINE
WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY NAJLA SAÏD
Clutch Productions, in partnership with Holy Trinity Church Inwood and Creative Women New York, is proud to present two staged reading performances of Palestine by Najla Saïd. All proceeds and donations from the performances will benefit humanitarian aid to the children of Gaza – specifically the Middle East Children's Alliance.
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PALESTINE
Written and Performed by Najla Saïd *
Direction and Dramaturgy by Sturgis Warner §
Music by Ray Leslee
When:
Saturday, June 15, 2024
2:00pm & 7:00pm
A Q&A will follow each performance in addition to a reception after the evening performance. The run time is approximately 2 hours, 10 minutes including the performance and Q&A.
Where:
Holy Trinity Church Inwood
20 Cumming Street
New York City
The venue is fully ADA accessible!
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About the Play
In Palestine, actor/playwright Najla Saïd provides a unique passage into one of the most volatile and historic corners of the earth. With compassion, humor, and honesty she makes a case for Palestinian and Arab points of view in ways that truly allow them to be heard. Raised in privilege on New York City's Upper West Side (where many of her best friends were Jewish) Najla was forced as a teenager to take a family trip to the Middle East to visit her father's homeland. Anorexic and depressed, obsessed with boys and the beach, her experiences nevertheless kindled a life-long exploration of what it means to be both Arab and American. Najla takes audiences on a whirlwind tour from kissing Jewish boys to “the stench of Gaza,” through two wars, the horrors of 9/11, encounters with world figures including Yasser Arafat, and life with her beloved father. Edward Saïd, was a professor at Columbia University and, until his death in 2003, a worldwide spokesman for Palestine and the Middle East.
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Palestine was originally produced in 2010 by Twilight Theatre Company in association with New York Theatre Workshop. The eight-week Off-Broadway run at the Fourth Street Theater was sold-out. In 2012 Palestine was subsequently produced by InterAct Theatre as part of their Outside the Frame Festival in Philadelphia. Najla has performed a concert version of the play all over the country with performances at Harvard, Brown, Boston College, Franklin and Marshall, University of Michigan, University of Alabama, Middlebury, among dozens of others.
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In 2013 Najla expanded the play into a memoir published by Penguin Books under the title Looking for Palestine. She went on a nationwide book tour sometimes performing the concert version of the play in lieu of book readings.
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Clutch wishes to express our gratitude to the Performers’ Unions:
ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION
AMERICAN GUILD OF MUSICAL ARTISTS
AMERICAN GUILD OF VARIETY ARTISTS
SAG-AFTRA
through Theatre Authority, Inc. for their cooperation in permitting the Artists to appear in this program.
* This Actor is appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association.
§ The Director is a member of the STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS SOCIETY, a national theatrical labor union.
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