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A Panel Discussion about Seeking Freedom & Free Theater

with Evanston playwright Ezzat Goushegir

Join us for a conversation about The Free Theater Movement and the play MY NAME IS INANNA with Ezzat Goushegir, Ali-Reza Mirsajadi, Maryam Abdi, and Max Truax, Artistic Director of Red Tape Theatre.

MY NAME IS INANNA, is written by Evanston playwright Ezzat Goushegir, directed by Ali-Reza Mirsajadi, and featuring Ensemble Member Maryam Abdi.

A Red Tape Theatre production, running through December 11th. All tickets are free.

About the Play:

Raw and brutal, My Name is Inanna is a passionate, lyrical story that blends myth and contemporary realities. The main character, named after Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, justice, and civilization, is a modern Middle Eastern woman poet and activist in search of identity and freedom. She flees the political tyranny of her home country after having been imprisoned for several years. After receiving political asylum in the U.S., land of democracy and social equality, she discovers unexpected limits to her freedom of speech as a second-class citizen. Marginalized as a pink-collar immigrant woman in the new society, she endures gender inequality, bigotry, and destitution. Seeking a new identity and justice she struggles to find her own place in the new society.

Ezzat Goushegir (Playwright, she/her) is a playwright, fiction writer and poet who has staged her plays internationally; published, and received awards including those for Maryam’s Pregnancy and Behind the Curtain. Her plays have been translated into French, Arabic and Mandarin and produced by theater companies in the U.S., Europe, China and the Philippines. Among her many activities, she was a Fellow Writer in the Iowa City International Writing Program, a Writer-in-Residence at the University of Maryland, a co-director and dramaturg of a reading series at New Federal Theatre in New York. She has published several plays and short stories in English anthologies, and ten books in Persian including four volumes of her Memories in Diaspora this summer. In March 2011, she performed MY NAME IS INANNA in Beijing China, where it had two productions at Trojan Theatre in November 2011 and The Penghao Theater in 2012. This play was selected for 9th international Women Playwrights Conference and was performed in August 2012 in Stockholm, Sweden. She currently teaches at DePaul University (SCPS) in Chicago.

Ali-Reza Mirsajadi (Director, they/he) is a director, scholar, and activist, whose work centers on minoritarian performance in the U.S. and MENA world. They are an Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at The Theatre School at DePaul University, where they head the BFA directing concentration. Reza’s scholarship has been published (or is forthcoming) in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, TDR, HowlRound, The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays, and Rehearsing Racial Equity: A Critical Anthology on Anti-Racism and Repair in the Arts. They are co-editing and translating the forthcoming anthology, The Dance of Mares and other Plays from Post-Revolutionary Iran, alongside Dr. Nahid Ahmadian, and Reza is also working on a monograph, Performing the Polyseme: Theatre and Ambiguity in Contemporary Iran. New to Chicago, Reza is an artistic associate of the Medina Theatre Collective, and they are co-directing and musical directing the upcoming premiere of Christmas Mubarak at Silk Road Rising. They hold a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from Tufts University.

Maryam Abdi (Actor playing lead role of Inanna, she/her) is an Iranian-American actor from Seattle, Washington. She started her professional theatre career in Chicago in 2017, but has worked and lived abroad in Cameroon, France, India, and Iran throughout her artistic career. Recent credits include: Trap Door Virtual Theatre, And Away We Stared, and Sasha in Decomposed Theatre Episode 5; George Fox University Virtual Theatre, Nadia in The Hijabis; The Gift Theatre, Laura/Bridesmaid in Kentucky (Jeff Award-Nominated); Firebrand Theatre, Barker/Ensemble in The Queen of the Mist (Jeff Award-Nominated); Pioneer Theatre (UT), Alais in Lion in Winter; Trap Door Theatre, Jane Fonda in Childhood Beauty, Into the Empty Sky (Jeff Award-Nominated), and Monsieur d’Eon is a Woman (Jeff Award-Nominated); Windy City Performs, Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz; Red Tape Theatre, Nanna in Round Heads and Pointed Heads (Jeff Award-Nominated); Remy Bumppo Theatre U/S in Frankenstein. Maryam is an ensemble member of Trap Door Theatre and Red Tape Theatre and an ensemble member with the Medina Théâtre Collective. She is proudly represented by DDO Artist’s Agency. Maryam became a licensed Real Estate Agent with Keller Williams in February, 2021.

Max Truax (Artistic Director of Red Tape Theatre, he/him/his) brings years of experience producing and directing experimental theatre and has been hailed by TimeOut Chicago as “one of the most visually visionary directors in Chicago’s storefront scene.” His work with Red Tape includes his direction of Brand and A Hedda Gabler. Prior to joining Red Tape, Max served as Artistic Director of Oracle Productions from 2011 until 2016, where he directed No Beast So Fierce, The President, The Mother, The Sandman, Woyzeck, The Ghost Sonata and Termen Vox Machina. His production of The Mother received several Jeff Awards, including awards for Best Production and Best Ensemble. Prior to his tenure as Artistic Director of Oracle, Max served as Oracle’s Director of Outreach and as Company Manager. Max has been a Resident Director at Trap Door Theatre since 2008, where he directed several productions, including No Matter How Hard We Try, The Balcony, They Are Dying Out, Hamletmachine, A Couple of Poor Polish-Speaking Romanians, and No Darkness Round My Stone. His production of A Couple of Poor Polish-Speaking Romanians performed at the Fun Underground Festival in Arad, Romania and at the Bagatela Theatre in Krakow, Poland. Other notable directing credits include A Dream Play at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (University of Illinois). Max studied visual art, performance art, and post-modern choreography at Oberlin College, and he received his MFA in Theatre Directing from California Institute of the Arts.

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