9 Kinds of Silence

Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright, scenographer, and director working in India and internationally. His work has been produced and commissioned in leading theaters of the world including Royal Court Theatre London, Prithvi Theatre Mumbai, Ranga Shankara Bangalore, Deutsch Shauspielhaus Hamburg, Ruhrfest Recklinghausen, Théâtre du Soleil Paris, National Theatre London, San Francisco Opera, PEN World Voices, Internacionale Dramaturgie Festival Buenos Aires and PlayCo New York amongst others. He is a recipient of multiple awards including the International Theatremakers award New York, Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Award Delhi, The Shankar Nag Rangakarmi Award Bangalore, the Toto Funds the Arts Award, Segal Center Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts, Best Director in London Movie Awards, Best Director 8 and Hal/ Film Festival (Rome) Awards amongst others. He works in Theater, Film and Opera. His book of essays, Theater Across Borders is published by Bloomsbury International as part of the Theatermakers series and he has been published, performed and translated in Hindi, English, French, German, Czech, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri, and Spanish. He is the Artistic Director of Nalanda Arts Studio Bangalore and creative producer at New Voices Arts Project based in Bangalore. He is also Associate Professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi and the Program head of the Theater Program.

Hend Ayoub (Actor) is a New York-based actor and writer. Theatre credits include: Broadway’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams, as well as its previous run at Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum; A Thousand Splendid Suns (Arena Stage); Kiss(Yale Repertory Theatre); First Down's world premiere at NYC's 59E59 Theater, American Fast's world premiere (InterAct Theater) and Veils (world premiere, Portland Stage; Barrington Stage). Television credits include Homeland, Orange Is The New Black, The Looming Tower, Madam Secretary, Royal Pains, Feed the Beast, The Accidental Wolf, Comedy Central’s The Watch List, and recurring roles on Transparent and Damages. In Film, she co-starred in the Emmy Award-winning film Death of a President and the multi award-winning film Private. She can be seen in the new upcoming film If You See Something.

Hend is currently workshopping her autobiographical solo show titled, “HOME?” about being a Palestinian born and raised in Israel.

Joe Joseph (Actor) Broadway: The Kite Runner, The Band’s Visit. Off-Broadway: The Fears, Merrily We Roll Along, Loveless Texas, Baghdaddy, Genet Porno. Follow@gojoejoseph.

Jian Jung (Set and Costume Designer) is a New York-based set designer from Korea.

Selected theater credits include THE NOSEBLEED at Lincoln Center Claire Tow Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theater (DC), OCEAN FILIBUSTER at A.R.T. (Boston), KISS at Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), BODIES THEY RITUAL at Wild Project, THE DAY YOU BEGIN at Kennedy Center (DC), SUICIDE FOREST at Bushwick Starr and ART/NY, and LUDIC PROXY at Soho Rep and Japan Society. Opera and musical credits include DIE FREISCHUTZ at Wolf Trap Opera (VA), PROMENADE at Fisher Center in Bard, LUCIO SILLA and EZIO at Huntington Theater (Boston), LE NOZZE DI FIGARO at Juilliard, MOSKVA, CHEREOMUSHKI at Long Beach Opera (CA).

Currently, Jung is working on a national tour of THE NOSEBLEED written and directed by Aya Ogawa, continuing their long collaboration from LUDIC PROXY and SUICIDE FOREST.

Other upcoming projects include set design for STAFF MEAL directed by Morgan Green at Playwrights Horizons, set and costume design for THE FOLLOWING EVENING by 600 Highwaymen at PAC NYC’s inaugural season, and costume design for GOOD DAY TO ME NOT TO YOU directed by Lee Sunday Evans.

With a long-standing relationship with Latinx theater, Jung designed set and costumes for Spanish, English, and dual language productions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, as well as many Latinx theaters in NYC, including the upcoming dual language production ZOETROPE written and directed by Javier Antonio Gonzalez at Abrons Arts Center and University of Puerto Rico.

Jung received an MFA in Theater Design from New York University and an MFA in Environmental Design from Ewha Women’s University in Korea. She teaches at NYU Tisch Design and Sarah Lawrence College. www.jianjung.com

Emma Deane (Lighting Designer) is an Indigenous lighting designer, and a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. Recent credits: Confederates (Signature Theatre NYC); Trouble in Mind (Hartford Stage); Peter Pan and Wendy (Kansas City Rep); On the Far End, Jennifer Who is Leaving (Round House Theatre); Three Sisters (Two River Theater); BAKKHAI (Baltimore Center Stage); Queen of Basel (TheaterWorks Hartford); Jane Eyre (Geva Theatre Center). Additional credits: New York Theater Workshop, St. Louis Rep, Yale Repertory Theater, The Fisher Center, Court Theatre, The Goodman, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Northlight Theatre, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. MFA - Yale School of Drama. USA 829. 

M. Florian Staab (Original Music & Sound Designer) based in Brooklyn, NY. Staab was born and raised in Germany and received a BA from Oberlin College and MFA from UIUC/Krannert Center. He is an associate artist with Sinking Ship Productions and teaches at Playwrights Horizons Theater School. His designs have been heard at the Public Theater, Irish Repertory Theatre, Harlem Stage, Trinity Repertory Company, City Theatre Pittsburgh, Center Theatre Group, Mint Theater Company, Pearl Theatre Company, The Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Drama League, New Saloon, Chicago Opera Vanguard and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Staab is a recording and mixing engineer and designs sound for narrative fiction podcasts. He also recently directed Bill Irwin’s On Beckett / In Screen for the camera.

Siena Yusi (Stage Manager) is a stage manager, theatre maker, and arts educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Her artistic endeavors revolve around cultivating and supporting creative spaces where theatre and artistic processes can be utilized to foster healing and spark change. Siena is passionate about new plays and has had the honor of working on over 15 world premiere productions in NYC. Recent stage management collaborations include 59E59 Theaters, The Hearth, Mabou Mines, PlayCo, Abrons Arts Center, The Brick, Playwrights Horizons Downtown, Brooklyn College, and Columbia University, among others. BFA: NYU Tisch. www.sienayusi.com

Jocelyn Clarke (Dramaturg) for stage and screen. He is Senior Dramaturg at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He is a writer/supervising producer on
P-Valley, Katori Hall’s acclaimed TV series - he is also execuMve story editor of the BBC/RTE TV series Young Offenders. He was Theatre Advisor to the Arts Council of Ireland for ten years, and Literary Manager of the Abbey, Ireland’s national theatre. Clarke has worked as a dramaturg with writers such as Katori Hall, Taylor Mac, Lydia Diamond, Abhishek Majumdar, Eduardo Machado, Lisa Kron, Tazewell Thompson, Carl Hancock Rux, Kenneth Lin, Nathan Alan Davis, Mary Kathryn Nagle, and Karen Zacarias. He has written several plays for Anne Bogart and the SITI Company — including Bob, Room, Score, Chess Match No. 5, and Trojan Women. He wrote a new book for Liz Swados’ musical The Beautiful Lady, which opened at LaMaMa in New York in May.

Rania Matar(Key Art Image) is a Lebanese-born American artist and mother, whose cross-cultural experience and personal narrative inform her photography. Matar’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Carnegie Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Rollins Museum of Art, Fotografiska, Institut du Monde Arabe, Cleveland Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, American University of Beirut Museum, and more. She currently has 2 solo museum exhibitions of her recently published series SHE at the Huntsville Museum of Art and the Fitchburg Museum of Art, and is part of Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond at LACMA. Matar received several awards and nominations including: 2023 shortlist for the Oskar Barnack Award, 2022 Leica Women Foto Project Award, 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residence grant, 2021 (2011 and 2007) Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships, and a 2011 Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award. She was also finalist for the Arnold New Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition with an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Gallery in Washington DC, and the Taylor Wessing Prize with an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 2008 she was a finalist for the Foster Award at the ICA/Boston, with an accompanying solo exhibition. She published four books: SHE, 2021; L’Enfant-Femme, 2016; A Girl and Her Room, 2012; Ordinary Lives, 2009.