Egyptian Bride | Egypt

Playwright: Fouad Teymour

Director: Warner Crocker

In collaboration with Silk Road Rising and Egyptian American Society

Synopsis: Two storylines, separated by 3,000 years of history, and each featuring an Egyptian Bride, are explored in a parallel but intermeshed, and interconnected, telling. One story features Maia, a young Theban beauty, who has just been selected by the God Hapy to be the next Bride of the Nile. The other centers on Maissa, an archeology student who has recently arrived from Cairo to Chicago to become the bride of Nayel, son of a ruthless business magnate from the Arab south side community, through a semi-arranged marriage. At a public lecture in Chicago, Maissa meets Professor Sarah Tanner who introduces her to a newly discovered Papyrus stack, and recruits her to help translate what appears to be the first preserved account of a bride of the Nile; the story of Maia. As the two stories intersect, the two brides-to-be mount respective resistance efforts against the social and cultural pressures forced upon them. Is it too little too late, or can established tradition be successfully upturned?

Join us from 5:30 to 6:30 for a special pre-performance reception before each reading. Enjoy sweets, along with juice and coffee before we begin our reading. The reading will begin at 6:30 PM followed by a talkback.

Performances are FREE to the public and reservations are not required. DONATIONS help keep the festival free!

Fouad Teymour (Playwright)

Fouad Teymour is a Chicago-based Egyptian American playwright, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an associate artist of Silk Road Rising (SRR) and Medina Theater Collective, and a board member for International Voices Project (IVP). The 2019 world premiere of his play Twice, Thrice, Frice… directed by Patrizia Acerra, was co-produced by SRR and IVP, and was Jeff-nominated for Best New Work and Best Scenic Design.  His play Blue Fish in a Tall Clear vase was directed by Jason Smith at Three Cat Productions in 2017. Teymour is also a Professor of Engineering at Illinois Tech.

Silk Road Rising is a community-centered arts organization rooted in Pan-Asian*, North African, and Muslim experiences. Through storytelling, digital media, and arts education, we challenge disinformation, cultivate new narratives, and promote a culture of continuous learning.

Our work builds empathy and understanding. It connects diverse people and communities. It provides alternative perspectives that inform and enlighten, and empower people to think more critically.

Most people these days access information through sources that affirm their own politics and biases. As Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have become the principal forums for our civic discourse, Americans arrange ourselves into ever smaller, ever less permeable silos. We adopt all-or-nothing attitudes about agreement and dissent. Some ideas are valid and others are not worth hearing. Some are approved, others are forbidden. There is no room for nuance in 280 characters.

Silk Road Rising works to build and empower a citizenry that can tackle big questions with deep understanding, a breadth of perspectives, and a shared humanity.

*Silk Road Rising defines "Pan-Asian" as the cultures that stretch from Japan to Turkey and from Kazakhstan to Indonesia, including their diaspora communities.

The Egyptian American Society in Chicago is a non-political non-sectarian organization. It aims to enhance the ties between Americans of Egyptian descent and friends of Egypt, and foster cultural and social relations between Egyptian Americans, Egyptians residing in the United States and the Egyptian Homeland.