FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tampa-Based Theatre Artist Andrea Assaf Receives National Joyce Award
DRONE: Testimonies & Music concert reading and dialogue in the 2023 Veteran Arts Triennial & Summit, at the Chicago Cultural Center. Pictured left to right: instrumentalist Zafer Tawil, vocalists Lubana Al Quntar and Aida Shahghasemi, and actors Andrea Assaf, Ashley Wilkerson, and Anu Yadav portraying “The Survivors.” Photo by Gabi Vigueira.
Tampa, FL – July 30, 2024 – Andrea Assaf, a Tampa-based writer, director, and performer, and the Arab American National Museum today were announced as one of five national recipients of the Joyce Foundation’s 2024 Joyce Awards. They will receive a landmark grant of $100,000 to support a new commission, including the artist award and production support for the presentation of DRONE, Assaf’s newest play and transmedia theatre project confronting the militarized use of drone technology and the human cost of war.
With the support of the Joyce Award, Assaf will develop DRONE in collaboration with the Arab American National Museum in the Detroit metropolitan area, through community-informed approaches including Story Circles and art-based dialogues. The multimedia piece will combine theatre, live music, and digital design to spark reflection and action. The project will be informed by conversations in the community of Dearborn, MI—home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States—as well as with local veterans and anti-war activists.
“This project explores the drone as a metaphor for how we become desensitized to daily violence (both domestic and global), the question of Moral Injury, and the effects of remote-control warfare on the human soul,” said Assaf. “As an Arab American, the impacts of drone warfare are very real to me. Drone policy is not something we have the luxury of ignoring; my hope with this play is to catalyze public dialogue that will shape the future of these policies, and inspire people to exercise their agency on the urgent issues of our time.”
Andrea Assaf has been active in the Tampa arts community since 2010. She is the founding Artistic Director of Art2Action, a Tampa-based nonprofit that creates, develops, produces, and presents original theatre, interdisciplinary performances, artistic interventions, and progressive cultural organizing. She served as an Artist-in-Residence at the University of South Florida (USF) School of Theater & Dance from 2014-2020, winning grants from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters for a Building Bridges project titled “THIS Bridge: Arab, Middle Eastern & Muslim Artists,” and from the Doris Duke Foundation for a Veteran Arts program. Art2Action is also the host of the popular Veteran Community Open Mic which has run at venues across Tampa including the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, and celebrated its 10th anniversary last September. In February, Assaf and Art2Action produced a local performance of an international theatre project titled “The Gaza Monologues” which was aired by WMNF 88.5 FM and can be streamed from the WMNF website. Most recently from July 20-21, Art2Action collaborated with Golden Thread Productions and HowlRound Theatre Commons to host a 24-Hour online event featuring 100+ global artists and activists for a free Palestine.
While Assaf is a Tampa-based artist, her work tours nationally. Art2Action has partnered with numerous national institutions, such as the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn/Detroit, Golden Thread in San Francisco, The Carver Community Cultural Center in San Antonio, Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis, and more.
Since its establishment in 2004, the Joyce Awards has been catalytic in advancing the careers of honorees, inspiring future work and opening the door to recognition at the highest national and international levels. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the foundation’s signature annual grantmaking program that has supported artists of color in the creation of new, community-centered works with organizational partners across the Great Lakes region. Over the past 20 years, the program has invested nearly $5 million for the creation of 87 new works of visual, performing, and multidisciplinary art. To learn more about the 20th anniversary of the Joyce Awards and the 2024 awardees, please see this announcement.
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Media Contact:
Gabi Vigueira
General Manager, Art2Action Inc.
Interviews and social media assets available upon request.
Background:
About Andrea Assaf
Andrea Assaf is a writer, director, performer, and cultural organizer. She is the founding Artistic and Executive Director of Art2Action Inc. Her seminal work, Eleven Reflections on September, was commissioned by Pangea World Theater and has been featured at Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of the National Asian American Theater Festival, La MaMa, The Apollo, The Kennedy Center, and toured nationally and internationally. It was reimagined as an award-winning digital film in 2021, and is now being recreated as a city-specific, community-devised series, Eleven Reflections on the Nation, in San Antonio, San Francisco, and beyond. Andrea’s other original works include: DRONE, commissioned by the Arab American National Museum, with additional support from Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) New Orleans, and National Performance Network (NPN), currently in development; Outside the Circle (co-created with Dora Arreola and Samuel Valdez), Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders with Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro, and more. Andrea has also created and directed numerous community-devised works with veterans, refugees, and youth. Directorial credits include: The Seasoned Woman by Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson with Lubana Al Quntar, Speed Killed My Cousin by Linda Parris Bailey, Breaking Letter(s) by Suhier Hammad, and more. Awards include: 2024 Joyce Award; 2021 Best Experimental Feature, Silk Road Film Awards Cannes; 2019 NEFA National Theater Project for DRONE; 2017 Freedom Plow Finalist for Poetry & Activism; 2010 & 2015 Princess Grace Awards, and more. Andrea is a respected leader in the national arts field, as a founding Co-Director of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation in partnership with Pangea World Theater, a founding Board member of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA), founding Board member of the Middle Eastern & North African Theater Makers Alliance (MENATMA), and a voting member of Alternate ROOTS. She has a master’s degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting, both from NYU. For more information, visit art2action.org/artists/Andrea-Assaf.
About the Arab American National Museum
The Arab American National Museum is a touchstone that connects communities to Arab American culture and experiences. Located in Dearborn, Mich., amid one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the United States, AANM presents original exhibitions, cutting-edge art, film screenings and performances across the nation, and continually documents the history and stories of Arab Americans. AANM is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums; an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution; a founding member of the Southeast Michigan nonprofit arts and culture association, CultureSource, the Immigration and Civil Rights Network of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and the Michigan Alliance for Cultural Accessibility; a member of the National Performance Network; and a national institution of ACCESS, the most comprehensive Arab American community nonprofit in the U.S. The Museum is located at 13624 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, MI, 48126. For more information, visit arabamericanmuseum.org.
About the Joyce Foundation
The Joyce Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Chicago that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region. Joyce supports research, development, and advocacy in six program areas: Culture, Democracy, Education & Economic Mobility, Environment, Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform, and Journalism. For more information about the Joyce Foundation, please visit www.joycefdn.org.
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