Alumna Salma Zohdi '16 Joins Noor Theatre

Noor Theatre recently announced that alumna Salma S. Zohdi ’16 will join their team as their new Associate Director of Development and Communications.

Noor Theatre is an Obie-Winning company dedicated to supporting, developing, and producing the work of theatre artists of Middle Eastern descent. The theatre’s programming features work at different stages of development, from early drafts to fully-staged world premiere productions. Based in New York City, Noor Theatre is a Company-In-Residence at New York Theatre Workshop as well as a member of Theatre Row’s Inaugural Kitchen Sink Residency.

“Noor was created to be a home for an ever-expanding, wildly diverse community of Middle Eastern and North African theatre artists,” said founding Artistic Director Lameece Issaq in a statement to the press. “With that growth, we welcome two wonderful artists and leaders onto our staff, Associate Artistic Director Sivan Battat and Associate Director of Development and Communications Salma S. Zohdi. Salma and Sivan bring a stunning rigor, vitality and artistry to Noor, and we could not be more excited to share these two bright lights with our community. I cannot wait to experience the next iteration of Noor—and the next generation of leadership—as these two brilliant theatre-makers bring the force of their talent to our team.”

Zohdi will bring the beliefs at the core of her artistic sensibility to her work at Noor.

“A storyteller at heart, I am committed to collaborating with MENA and BIPOC theater artists to present untold human narratives that aren’t commonly covered in the American news cycle,” Zohdi said in an interview with 3Views on Theatre. “I am committed to narratives that add a new perspective to the American theater canon, ones that would challenge the status quo and encourage community engagement, justice, equity, inclusion, and dialogue.”

Salma S. Zohdi (she/her) is an Egyptian dramaturg and theatre practitioner based in New York City. A cross-cultural storyteller who strives to align theatre-making with social justice movement-building, Zohdi is passionate about facilitating and using the power of storytelling to amplify and uplift a wide range of voices as well as to challenge injustice.

In Egypt, Zohdi was Alumni Community Theatre’s (ACT, Egypt) Public Relations & Marketing Manager, where she also worked as a producer, teaching artist, stage manager, and assistant director. She was also among millions who took to the streets in 2011 as part of the January 25 revolution. Ever since, she has actively sought to meld the principles of social justice movement-building to her theatre practice. This led her to New York City in 2013, where she studied and has since been practicing dramaturgy, communications, creative producing, theatre administration, literary advising, and new-play development. Zohdi is also the co-host of Global Gab, a cross-cultural monthly Zoom conversation that centers immigrant artists. Highlights of her US theater credits include: The Mecca Tales, The Yacoubian Building, Mix & Match, Operating Systems, The Conversationalists, Pilgrims Musa & Sheri in the New World, and Global Forms Theater Festival (GFTF).