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ALUMNI JAM 1/20
Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Diana Oh, Cori Thomas, Jessica Litwak
Monday, January 20, 2020 at 7:00PM

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
224 Waverly Place
New York, NY 10014


Monday, January 20th:

Host: Jackson Gay

Jackson Gay, with New Neighborhood, Dan Butler and DMNDR, produced Filibustered and Unfiltered: America Reads the Mueller Report, a 24-hour reading of the Mueller Report, inspiring numerous events nationwide. Featured everywhere from the Los Angeles Times (“a live-theater summer sensation!”) to Breitbart News (“the single most boring and pointless way to waste your time!”), and was name-checked during Robert Mueller’s nationally televised public testimony. Upcoming: Lucy Thurber’s Transfers for Audible; the new musical Sabina by Willy Holtzman, Louise Beach and Darrah Cloud (Portland Stage); Elizabeth Baker’s Partnership (Mint Theater). For Rattlestick: Thurber’s Stay and Where We’re Born and David Adjmi’s 3C.

Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, sharing Draw The Circle


Mashuq Mushtaq Deen is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a 2019 Lambda Literary Award Winner. His full-length plays include The Empty Place, Flood, The Betterment Society, The Shaking Earth, and Draw the Circle (productions: PlayMakers Rep, Mosaic Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre; published: Dramatists Play Service; winner Lambda Literary Award). Deen’s work has been presented/developed/supported by a number of institutions including New Dramatists, Sundance Institute, Ucross, Blue Mountain Center, The Public Theater, NYTW, MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Target Margin Theatre, Keen Company, New Harmony Project, among others. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and represented by the Gurman Agency.

Draw The Circle: The hilarious and deeply moving story of conservative Muslim mother at her wits’ end, a Muslim father who likes to tell jokes, and a queer American woman trying to make a good impression on her Indian in-laws. In a story about family and love and the things we do to be together, one immigrant family must come to terms with a child who defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter…and one woman will redefine the limits of unconditional love. This unique play compassionately brings to life the often ignored struggle that a family goes through when their child transitions from one gender to another.


Diana Oh, sharing {my lingerie play}

Diana Oh is a multi-genre performer and a creator of parties, installations, music, concerts, rituals, and other unboxable art. Oh is a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ Influencer and the Creator of The Infinite Love Party (an intentional, barefoot, potluck dinner, dance party, and sleepover for QTPOC and their Allies), {my lingerie play} (ten underground performance installations in my lingerie staged in an effort to provide a safer, more courageous world for women, queer, trans, and non-binary humans to live in), CLAIRVOYANCE (an installation and concert series in Boston to center QTPOC magic), MY H8 LETTER TO THE GR8 AMERICAN THEATRE (The Public Theater), and ASIAN PEOPLE ARE NOT MAGICIANS (mic.com).


Cori Thomas, sharing Lockdown

Cori Thomas. Plays include: LOCKDOWN; WHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER; CITIZENS MARKET; THE LIBERIAN. LEGACY TRILOGY. Produced and Developed at includes: Rattlestick, EST, Playwrights Horizons, Page 73, Women’s Project; The Goodman Theater; Pillsbury House Theater; Mixed Blood; Going To The River and more. Residencies, Fellowships, Honors include: New Dramatists Resident; O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; Sundance Theater Lab; MacDowell; Bogliasco; Baryshnikov Arts Center; ATCA Osborn Award; Finalist The Horton Foote Prize; Theodore Ward Prize; and more. TV and Series include: JuVee Productions, and AUDIBLE. Screen: She is presently writing an original Screenplay about Nelson Mandela for HBO Films. Other: Co-Founder of The Pa’s Hat Foundation a 501c(3) organization focused on helping former child soldiers marginalized citizens of Liberia with educational and work related assistance. For the last 3 years, Cori has been working with Lonnie Morris who is in his 42nd year of Incarceration at San Quentin State Prison, they are writing a play together to be presented at the prison by No More Tears a Non Profit Lonnie co-founded geared towards preventing recidivism and helping with re-entry. Cori sits on the board of No More Tears.

LOCKDOWN is a Toulmin commissioned play by Rattlestick Theater. It was also chosen for the 2019 O’Neill Playwrights conference. The play received its world premiere at the theater in Spring 2019. The was inspired by Cori Thomas’ work in San Quentin State Prison working with Lifers. It is the story of a long time incarcerated man and volunteer writers who helps him to craft his paroled statement. Together they explore the meaning of redemption and grief. LOCKDOWN is an authentic look at long term mass incarceration, parole issues, and redemption.


Jessica Litwak, sharing 50,000 Mice

Jessica Litwak is an internationally recognized theatre educator focused specifically on theatre for social justice and community engagement. She is an award winning playwright, an actor, a director, a puppet builder and a drama therapist. Her work is published by No Passport Press, Smith & Krause, Applause Books and The New York Times. She is the Artistic Director of The H.E.A.T. Collective and the founder of Artists Rise Up New York. Her widely produced plays include The Emma Goldman Trilogy, Wider Than The Sky, The FEAR Project, Secret Agents, The Night it Rained, Dream Acts and My Heart is in the East. Her work is published by No Passport Press, Smith & Krause, Applause Books and The New York Times. She has worked across Europe, the U.S. and The Middle East. Litwak is a core member of Theatre Without Borders, a PhD in Theatre For Social Change, and a Fulbright Scholar. Her play A Pirate’s Lullaby was produced at Rattlestick in 1997.

50,000 Mice: The audience enters the Votes For Women Club in 1910 San Francisco as luncheon customers. After receiving nickels at the door, they can purchase (as women did in 1910) 5 cent bowls of soup. They will be served by Selena Solomons who will speak directly to the audience about issues both historical (suffrage) and immediate (women’s rights that are now at risk over 100 years later) In the course of her impassioned informational plea to the audience, the drama within the club will take her focus away and the audience will watches stories unfold within the club. We will hear from two local contemporaries of Selena: Lydia Floyd Jackson an African American Suffragette from Oakland and Mable Brown (Chedokuida) a Pomo Indian , as well as an itinerant girl at risk who is seeking shelter and a working woman who is arguing with an “Antis” (women who vigorously oppose the vote) who has come to the club to disturb the peace. The action, both comic and dramatic culminates with an impending raid by local authorities and the swift end of luncheon.