Ghina Fawaz '25 and Begüm Inal '23 Present 'The Thousand and One Nights (ألف ليلة وليلة)' at LaMaMa

Directing alum Ghina Fawaz '25 and Dramaturgy alum Begüm Inal '23 will present a workshop production of their play The Thousand and One Nights (ألف ليلة وليلة ) at La MaMa Theater in the East Village. The play, which Fawaz and Inal adapted and wrote together and which recently ran at the Lenfest Center for the Arts as Fawaz’s thesis production, tells the story of Scheherazade, a legendary figure who told a "tapestry of tales" which prevented her death at the hands of a bitter king. Told through Hakawati oral tradition, poetry, puppetry, and music, the production blends Arabic folklore with contemporary stories to acknowledge colonialism and the need to reclaim a narrative, while celebrating and inspiring the resilience of Indigenous communities. 

Ghina Fawaz is a Lebanese-American director, playwright, and artist. Her work blends art with activism, drawing on folklore and oral histories to amplify underrepresented voices and a means of creative resistance. Her past works include Antlers developed through interviews with citizens of Southern Lebanon about occupation, an adaptation of Chekov’s Three Sisters that imagines Olga, Masha, and Irinia as refugees trapped in a Russian airport, and Watermelon Boy, a play in development with Chaesong Kim '23 and Anuka Sethi about a boy living under occupation who "after eating the seed of a forbidden fruit, transforms into a watermelon." Fawaz has also directed works by Meg Ledford '25, Andrew Reid '25, and Dacyl Acevedo '25. She previously assisted Leigh Silverman on the Broadway production of Professor Emeritus and Special Lecturer David Henry Hwang’s Yellowface. 

Begüm Inal is a multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Turkey. Inal has utilized her degree in dramaturgy in many aspects of performance including script writing and development, stage and costume design. With a focus on oral history, folklore, community engagement, and accessibility, Inal is committed to performance that uplifts and champions marginalized voices. They have served as the dramaturg for the National Queer Theater’s annual Criminal Queerness Festival for the past four years at: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, PACNYC, and HERE Arts Center. Inal previously worked as an administrator for La MaMa. 

Hwang described The Thousand and One Nights as "Magical, funny, heartbreaking, revolutionary, and delightful," and credits Fawaz with conjuring a world which "encompasses all these seeming contradictions with exquisite skill and inspiring passion."

Tickets for The Thousand and One Nights can be purchased here.