I make theatre about my own and other cultures, stories that challenge racism, stories by and about women, stories about the environment, stories about our resilience and our limitations as humans. As a theatre maker and in my graduate research, I have examined how theatre can call out biased narratives and invite audiences toward a wider sense of who we are. With theatre I explore and bridge its divisions.
I am an Artistic Associate with Silk Road Cultural Center - foregrounding Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern artists, an Associate Artist with The International Voices Project - bringing plays from around the world to Chicago, an Associate Artist at Chicago Dramatists - championing new play development, and a member of Promethean Theatre Ensemble - where the company partners with other nonprofits to address real world issues through its programming. Through IVP I have worked with playwrights from Sweden, Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
Current and recent work includes Reverend Austen's Daughter, a chamber musical about a writer finding her voice, Ziryab, a piece examining displacement and the 600-year period in Andalusia when the three Abrahamic religions coexisted, A Town Called Progress by Trina Kakacek, which looks at gender roles and the myth of having it all, and the upcoming Blood of the Lamb by Arlene Hutton, about women's reproductive rights. Running through all of it is a question: what can fracture the narratives that are creating confined spaces, rather than closer connections.
My productions have received JEFF Citations for New Work and Use of Multimedia and After Dark Awards for Direction and Ensemble. I served as the 2011–2012 Michael Maggio Directing Fellow at the Goodman Theatre and am a recipient of a 3Arts WAVE Grant and several Chicago and Illinois Individual Artist Grants. More about my work at AnnaBahow.com.
