We're thrilled to announce our ongoing collaboration with novelist Marina Budhos on an adaptation staging of her book WATCHED, which explores the impact of surveillance in Muslim-American communities.
2017 Tour dates:
April 3: Nassau Community College
April 21: New York University
May 19: Montclair NJ
June 6: Saratoga Springs, NY
July 12: Buffalo, NY
2017 Tour dates:
April 3: Nassau Community College
April 21: New York University
May 19: Montclair NJ
June 6: Saratoga Springs, NY
July 12: Buffalo, NY
Naeem, a Muslim-American high school student, is adrift and flirting with trouble. He chafes against the limited opportunities available to him, and struggles with his family and community. When he is picked up by the NYPD for a minor infraction he is also offered what seems, at first, to be the opportunity he craves. By becoming an informer on his own community, he can have access to power and a way out. But Naeem soon finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, and must fight to regain his own integrity in a world that is far more complex than he realized.
Set in the Bangladeshi-American community of Jackson Heights, Queens, WATCHED invites us into mosques, family gatherings, and holiday celebrations. It offers a glimpse of the ordinary rhythms of Muslim-American life—work, prayer, and community—and it paints a haunting portrait of life under surveillance, and the price we all pay for forcing a generation of young people to come of age in the shadows.
Please contact us if you'd like to explore ways WATCHED can catalyze conversation and engagement in YOUR community!
Set in the Bangladeshi-American community of Jackson Heights, Queens, WATCHED invites us into mosques, family gatherings, and holiday celebrations. It offers a glimpse of the ordinary rhythms of Muslim-American life—work, prayer, and community—and it paints a haunting portrait of life under surveillance, and the price we all pay for forcing a generation of young people to come of age in the shadows.
Please contact us if you'd like to explore ways WATCHED can catalyze conversation and engagement in YOUR community!
"As a South Asian immigrant male who came of age in the shadow of 9/11, the themes this story explores are very personal to me,. The struggle to define what being "American" means while being constantly reminded by everything around you that you are "the other", and to balance that with your instinct to stay rooted in your heritage is really the struggle that has shaped my identity. Like Naeem, I came here when I was 10 after having lived in India, so that process of tearing one identity down and piecing together a new one, feeling a sense of shame for being different, and the restlessness that experience instills you, to always keep moving and changing, is something I'm all too familiar with."
--Kesav Wable, cast member