USA Projects

Andrea Assaf  is a performer, writer, director, & cultural organizer. The founder & Artistic Director of Art2Action, she has a Masters degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting, both from NYU. She is the former Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater (2004-09), and Program Associate for Animating Democracy (2001-04). She has taught Acting technique, Voice and Creative Movement in New York, Boston, and Washington DC.  Andrea's performance work ranges from original, interdisciplinary solo and collaborative productions, to spoken word and community-based arts.  

Andrea is a recipient of a 2010 Princess Grace Award for Directing, and the 2010 Gant Gaither Theater Award.  Through the Princess Grace Fellowship, she is an Artist-in-Residence with Pangea World Theater for the 2010-11 season.  Andrea has also received a 2010-12 Creation Fund award for the creation of Outside the Circle -- a new play on sexuality and (dis)ability, co-written with Samuel Valdez -- co-commissioned by Pangea World Theater, El Centro Su Teatro, the Esperanza Center for Justice & Peace, and NPN.

As a spoken word artist, Andrea has performed her latest poetry series, Eleven Reflections on September, at the Centro Cultural Tijuana (Mexico, 2010), the Zero Budget Festival in Wroclaw, Poland (Grotowski Institute, 2009); the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC (2007); and the Augusta Savage Gallery at the Univeristy of Massachusetts-Amherst (2007).   Excerpts & readings have also been performed at the RAWI conference for Arab American writers (2010), Alternate ROOTS (2008), and Hedgebrook's NYC Alumni gathering (2007).  Andrea is currently developing this project into a fully staged, multi-media theater production, commissioned by Pangea World Theater's Alternate Visions Festival (Minneapolis, 2011).  See Andrea's Projects page for details, and ways to support this work!

Other recent directing and new theater works include:   breaking letter(s) by Suheir Hammad (NWT, 2008); Shekadii Walaalo (Sister-Story), a community collaboration with the Walaalo! Somali Sisters Collective (NWT, 2008); Womb-Words, Thirsting by Lenelle Moise (NWT, 2007); and Parang Sabil by Kinding Sindaw at the first National Asian American Theater Festival (NYC, 2007).   In 2005-06, Andrea toured to Mexico, the U.S., Nicaragua and Canada with Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro, in Fronteras Desviadas / Deviant Borders, which she wrote/co-created (supported by a grant from Contacto Cultural) -- see Andrea's Showcase page for more information!  In 2004, Andrea co-directed Slain: Women Going Down (with Dora Arreola), by Parker Prajeck, at the WOW Moves! festival in NYC.   In 2003, her solo show, Globalicities, was featured in the NY International Fringe Festival.  Andrea was also a featured poet at the People's Poetry Gathering in 2003, and at Blue Stockings Women's Bookstore in NYC.  She has performed live on WBAI's Radio Tahrir: Voices of the Arab/Muslim Community, twice.  In 2002, she was a winner in the Urbana Queer Slam in NYC.

In 2007, Andrea was awarded a residency at the Hedgebrook, for "women authoring change." Andrea currently serves on the Board of CAATA (Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists), and on the National Steering Committee for the National Asian American Theater Festival & Conference (NAATF).  She is a member of Alternate ROOTS, and the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI).