Sharifa Yazmeen
| Sharifa Yazmeen | |
|---|---|
| Born | Saudi Arabia |
| 🏫 Education | Brown University |
| 💼 Occupation | Theatre director; playwright |
| 🌐 Website | www |
Sharifa Yazmeen is an Egyptian American playwright and theatre director. Her plays have been featured in two volumes of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays. In 2021 Yazmeen was the inaugural winner of the Barbara Whitman Award and in 2024 she was awarded an Abe Burrows Award for Assistant Directors.
Biography
Yazmeen was born in Saudi Arabia; her father is Egyptian and her mother is a white American.[1] She grew up in North and South Carolina as a practicing Muslim.[1] She has an MFA in Directing from Brown University.[2]
Yazmeen is a playwright and theatre director.[3] In 2021 she was the inaugural winner of the Barbara Whitman Award, which recognizes "a female, trans, or nonbinary early-career director who has demonstrated a unique vision in their work".[3] Her play Close to Home was developed as part of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in San Francisco in 2022.[4] The play follows three strangers: a trans femme teenager, a builder and a Muslim immigrant.[4] It premiered at Pillsbury House + Theatre in 2025.[5] Her 2023 direction of Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar was praised as using choices that created an "impending doom, horror movie-style" for the production.[6]
A 2022 review of Yazmeen's play The Devils Between Us in The Lawrence Times called it "an engaging and transformative piece of storytelling".[7] It is one of eight plays featured in the 2021 volume The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.[8] In it a trans Arab American woman returns to her home town due to the death of her father.[9] In their critical introduction in The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays, Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel and Ali-Reza Mirsajadi say the work "pushes back against homonationalist rhetoric that vilifies Muslims, de-exoticizing Egyptian heritage".[1] They place it as one of the plays written by authors from the South that deal with race and womanhood.[1][8]' Her play Close to Home is included in the second volume of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.[10]
In 2024 she was one of two inaugural winners (with Violeta Picayo) of the Abe Burrows Award for Assistant Directors.[11] She has been awarded a Jerome Fellowship by the Playwrights' Center (2025–2027).[12]
Personal life
Yazmeen is transgender.[12]
Selected works
Plays
Directing credits
- Babel by Jacqueline Goldfinger, Contemporary American Theater Festival (2022)[17]
- Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, American Stage (2023)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Mikhaiel, Yasmin Zacaria, and Ali-Reza Mirsajadi. “Challenging Every Memory”: Manifesting Futurity in The Devils Between Us", The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays (2021), pp. 219, 222 and 223.
- ↑ "Sharifa Yazmeen | Wittenberg University". www.wittenberg.edu. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Sharifa Yasmin Awarded SDCF's Inaugural Barbara Whitman Award". American Theatre. 2021-04-28. Retrieved 2026-01-20.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "LGBTQ Voices Spotlighted in 2022 Bay Area Playwrights Festival". San Francisco Bay Times. 2022-07-28. Retrieved 2026-01-20.
- ↑ "Close to Home". Pillsbury House and Theatre. Archived from the original on 2026-01-21. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ Warner, David (2023-06-07). "Ayad Akhtar's Haunting Disgraced at American Stage". The Gabber Newspaper. Retrieved 2026-01-20.
- ↑ "KU Theatre's fall finale centers trans woman, 'disrupts' idea of classic American play". The Lawrence Times. 2021-12-01. Retrieved 2026-01-20.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Keyes, Leanna; Mantoan, Lindsey; Schiller, Angela Farr, eds. (2021). The Methuen Drama book of trans plays. London: Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-1-350-17923-3. Search this book on
- ↑ Rowen, Bess (2023-09-01). "The Trans Theatre Tipping Point". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 45 (3): 117–121. doi:10.1162/pajj_r_00688. ISSN 1520-281X.
- ↑ Keyes, Leanna; Mantoan, Lindsey; Schiller, Angela Farr (2025-08-21). The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Volume 2. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-45810-9. Search this book on
- ↑ "Violeta Picayo and Sharifa Essa Yasmin Receive SDCF's Inaugural Abe Burrows Award for Assistant Directors". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2025-11-18. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Schafer, Teri (2025-04-15). "Announcing our 2025–27 Jerome & Many Voices Fellows". Playwrights' Center. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ "The Devils Between Us | New Play Exchange". newplayexchange.org. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ "Close to Home | New Play Exchange". newplayexchange.org. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ "Bone by Bone | New Play Exchange". newplayexchange.org. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ "Lilith's Tears | New Play Exchange". newplayexchange.org. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- ↑ Hertvik, Nicole (2022-07-18). "'Babel' by Jacqueline Goldfinger at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival". DC Theater Arts. Retrieved 2026-01-20.
This article "Sharifa Yazmeen" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Sharifa Yazmeen. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
- American transgender women
- American women dramatists and playwrights
- Egyptian women dramatists and playwrights
- American women theatre directors
- Egyptian women theatre directors
- Egyptian transgender women
- Barbara Whitman Award winner
- 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
- Egyptian dramatists and playwrights
- 21st-century Egyptian writers
- 21st-century Egyptian women writers
- American theatre directors
- Egyptian theatre directors
- American people of Egyptian descent
- Egyptian people of American descent
- Brown University alumni
- 21st-century American LGBTQ people
- 21st-century Egyptian LGBTQ people
- LGBTQ theatre directors
- American LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights
- Egyptian LGBTQ writers
