Alumni Clarence Coo '10 and Kareem Fahmy '07 Named 2019 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab Fellows

Alumni Clarence Coo ‘10 and Kareem Fahmy ‘07 have been named 2019 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab Fellows. Sundance has selected 15 globally-focused theatre-makers to develop projects at this year’s lab, running July 8–28 in Utah.

Selected projects and artists include On That Day in Amsterdam, by Clarence Coo and directed by Kareem Fahmy; The Blind King, by David Adjmi and directed by Sarah Lunnie; Definition, written and directed by Whitney White; Don’t Eat The Mangos, by Ricardo Pérez González and directed by David Mendizábal; Dreaming Zenzile, by Somi Kakoma and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz; The Garden, by Charlayne Woodard and directed by Liz Diamond; London-Jenin, devised and performed by Faisal Abu Alhayjaa and Alaa Shehada, written and directed by Khawla Ibraheem; and an untitled project by Bassem Youssef.

Clarence Coo is a recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award and the 2012 Yale Drama Series Prize. His work, which also includes the plays Beautiful Province (Belle Province), The Birds of Empathy, Chapters of a Floating Life, On That Day in Amsterdam, People Sitting in Darkness, has been produced or developed at New York Theatre Workshop, Ma-Yi Theatre, New Dramatists, Second Generation, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the New York International Fringe Festival, Mu Performing Arts, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Round House Theatre, East West Players, the Mark Taper Forum, the Young Playwrights Festival and the Kennedy Center. His plays have been published by Temple University Press, the New Press and Samuel French. He is also the manager of academic administration of Columbia’s MFA Writing Program. He received his MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University.

Kareem Fahmy is a Canadian-born director and playwright of Egyptian descent. He has directed a number of world premiere productions including James Scruggs’s 3/Fifths (3LD, New York Times Top 5 Must-See Shows), Sevan K. Greene’s This Time (Sheen Center, New York Times Critics’ Pick), Bess Welden’s Refuge*Malja (Portland Stage), Adam Kraar’s Alternating Currents (Working Theater), Nikkole Salter’s Indian Head (Luna Stage), and Victor Lesniewski’s Couriers and Contrabands (TBG Theatre, also co-creator). His plays, which include The Triumphant, Pareidolia, The In-Between, and an adaptation of the acclaimed Egyptian novel The Yacoubian Building have been developed or presented at The Atlantic Theater Company, Target Margin Theater, The Lark, Fault Line Theater, and Noor Theater. He received his MFA in directing from Columbia University.