Noor’s Commissioning Initiative
Noor exists for two essential reasons: to create and present nuanced content and to give artists of Middle Eastern descent opportunities they might not find elsewhere. In regards to content, we aim to present work that challenges the harmful stereotypes of Middle Easterners rampant in popular media; broaches sensitive and difficult issues within our communities; and illuminates the shared humanity and universality of our respective cultures, heritages, and traditions.
Full-Length Play Commissions
Most recently, we commissioned playwright SEVAN as part of the Kitchen Sink Residency at Theatre Row. His play First Down is about a football star’s decision to reveal his identity as Arab-Muslim during the Super Bowl. Previously, we commissioned playwright Ismail Khalidi to write a play with music about Arab immigrants in the Jim Crow South, called Dead Are My People. The play received a workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop’s 4th Street Theatre in 2018.
Artists Advancing Cultural Change Cohort
This program supports three Middle Eastern American writers to create new work that reflects and responds to key ideas and narratives swirling at the center of contemporary American culture. Ensuring that the unique perspectives of Middle Eastern Americans are given a platform, we curate and support a cohort of writers over one year to conceptualize new scripts or treatments (for theater, TV, film, transmedia, social media or VR) that reflect their own experiences, address issues relative to their respective heritages, and intersect with goals for social change.
Kitchen Sink Residency
at theatre row
The Kitchen Sink Residency provides cohort companies a two-year commitment of space and support, as well as a sustained artistic home base, as they create and present a new, never-before-produced work. We’re excited to have SEVAN’s play First Down included in this inaugural Kitchen Sink cohort, where it will receive further development and a world premiere production.
Our commissioning initiative has been supported over the years by: The Mosaic Fund, Pop Culture Collaborative, and 59E59 Theaters.