HARVESTING OLIVES: A COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024
7PM at Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater
written and performed by Yaffa AS (they/she)
developed in collaboration with Rad Pereira (they/them)
Sound Designer: Bailey Trierweiler (he/him)
Stage Manager: Bea Perez-Arche (she/they)
Co-Producer: Sara Ramirez (they/them)
ASL Interpreter: Zoey Walker (they/them)
HARVESTING OLIVES is a mask required performance.
Drawing from Mx. Yaffa’s books of writing and poetry as a trans Palestinian death worker and community organizer, we invoke utopias, spiral through grief and jump between realms through a collective improvisation. We hold a container for chaos, intimacy, restorative devastation, falling apart, and space to commune with ancestors through oral history and experimentation. HARVESTING OLIVES is adapted from Desecrated Poppies, Blood Orange, and Inara with guidance from ancestors, community members, and guides.
Yaffa AS (they/she)
Writer and Performer
Mx. Yaffa (they/she) is an acclaimed disabled, autistic, trans, queer, Muslim, and indigenous Palestinian. Yaffa is the executive Director of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) and has received multiple awards for their transformative work around displacement, decolonization, equity, and centering the lived experiences of individuals most impacted by injustice. Yaffa is an engineer, peer support specialist, death doula, birthing doula, and yoga teacher. Yaffa is the author of “Blood Orange”, a poetry collection about displacement, colonization, and hope building, the editor "Inara: light of Utopia," about the current genocide and a free Falasteen, and “desecrated poppies” are out now. Their newest collection of essays "whispers beneath the orange groves" is out now.
Rad Pereira (they/them)
Director
Rad Pereira (they/them) is a queer trans (im)migrant cultural worker building consciousness between healing justice, system change, reindigenization and queer futures currently based between Lenapehoking (Brooklyn) and Haudenosaunee territory (upstate NY). Their work has been experienced on stages, screens, stoops, swamps and sidewalks all over Turtle Island through the support of many communities and organizations. They are Director of Engagement & Impact at NY Stage & Film. They are co-founder of Iron Path Farm & Arts. Their book Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, By Those Who Lived It is available through New Village Press. They are a proud board member of Superhero Clubhouse. Co-founder of You Are Here. They are on the co-leadership team at Network of Ensemble Theaters.
Bailey Trierweiler (he/him)
Sound Designer
Bailey Trierweiler (he/him) is a New York based sound designer, editor, engineer and mixer for live theater performance, installation, dance and audio drama. Select design credits include Blood of the Lamb (59E59); Riverside (Indy Shakes); Dangerous Days (Miami New Drama); The Slow Dance (59E59); Fires in the Mirror (Baltimore Center Stage/Long Wharf Theatre); already there (The REACH at the Kennedy Center), among others. Select associate sound designer for The Blood Quilt (Lincoln Center Theatre); Valour: A Drag Spectacular (La Jolla Playhouse); The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Co); KATE (Connelly Theater); The Comeuppance (Signature Theatre Company); Becky Nurse of Salem (Lincoln Center Theatre); King John (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Peerless (59E59) among others. M.F.A - Yale School of Drama.
Bea Perez-Arche (she/they)
Stage Manager
Bea Perez-Arche (she/they) is a Cuban American theatre artist focused on creating community through her work in the arts. She has primarily worked at the Public Theater on Shakespeare in the Park, the Under the Radar Festival, and the Public Shakespeare Initiative. She is an Associate Artist at Sanguine Theatre Company and has collaborated with a range of institutions including The Flea, The Civilians, Tectonic Theater Project, One Whale’s Tale, Women’s Project, La Mama, Little Island, Chelsea Factory, and Ballet Collective. She received her BFA in Theater Arts from Boston University and currently freelances as a stage manager, director, and dramaturg.
Sara Ramirez (they/them)
Co-Producer
Tony Award© winner Sara Ramírez made history playing the longest-running Latine LGBTQ+ character on TV, ‘Dr. Callie Torres’ on ABC’s hit Grey’s Anatomy. Other TV credits include: Law & Order: SVU, Madam Secretary, And Just Like That, and animated series Sofia the First. Sara graduated from Juilliard’s Drama Division and made their Broadway debut starring in Paul Simon’s The Capeman. Following that, they starred on Broadway in Fascinating Rhythm, A Class Act, and Off Broadway in The Vagina Monologues. For their performance as the original Lady of the Lake in the Broadway smash-hit Monty Python’s Spamalot, they earned both a Tony Award© and Outer Critics Award. Most recently they co-produced Cecilia Gentili’s Red Ink at Rattlestick Theater Co.
Zoey Walker (they/them)
ASL Interpreter
Zoey Walker is a gender fluid creative originally from Reno, Nevada. They are an alumni of Gallaudet University and are passionate about authentic representation and storytelling. In their free time, they love doing improv, making films, and they have an improv based podcast coming out soon!
2024 FESTIVAL STAFF
Co-Sound Designer: Bailey Trierweiler (he/him)
Literary Manager: Bryar Barborka (they/them)
Casting Director: Charlie Hano, CSA (he/him)
Co-Sound Designer: Christopher Darbassie
Associate Producer: Esmé Maria Ng (they/she/he)
Assistant Producer: Flower Estefana Rios
Founding Artistic Director: George Strus (they/them)
Graphic Designer: Marc Ella Roy (they/them)