Soon after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Middle Eastern-themed San Francisco theater troupe Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient Festival was a success, prompting the organization to create a 2024 season called “A Season for Palestine.”
Golden Thread Productions Artistic Director Sahar Assaf says a lack of commentary about the conflict from many Bay Area theater companies didn’t go unnoticed: “At the individual level, I see artists are speaking up, but frankly, at the mainstream institutional level I think the silence is deafening. I ask myself why is the wider theater community here in the Bay Area still silent about this? This isn’t solely a Middle Eastern issue. It’s a global concern.”
The season’s five programs, all featuring Palestinian writers focusing on Palestinian stories, characters and testimonies, include three annual presentations.
The first, the showcase “What Do the Women Say?” is at San Francisco’s Brava Theatre on March 8. It features an homage to the late Nabila Mango, a Bay Area activist and promoter of Palestinian culture and community; music by the Aswat Ensemble; a reading from Raeda Taha’s play “Where Can I Find Someone Like You, Ali?”; traditional dance by Al-Juthoor Dabke Dancers; and a selection from a musical by Amal Bisharat based on a refugee story adapted from Susan Abulhawa’s best-selling novel “Mornings in Jenin.”
In its fifth season, the digital conversation series “No Summary” is slated for May 24-June 14, and the developmental staged reading series “New Threads,” which was established in 2011, takes place July 26-Aug. 17.
New productions are “Returning to Haifa” by Ghassan Kanafani from April 12-May 4, and “11 Reflections: San Francisco,” part of national series of performance works “Eleven Reflections on the Nation” devised by Andrea Assaf (no relation to Golden Thread’s artistic director) on Oct.4-5.
Sahar Assaf, speaking after returning from a trip to her native Lebanon, where she connected with family members affected by the war, says Golden Thread’s 2024 season is about more than artistic expression.
“It is definitely an act of activism,” she says. “When the genocide began, I personally felt paralyzed. We were in the midst of ReOrient and I felt like every day I had to drag myself to work. Like many people in our community, I was, and still am, pushing through profound anger and sorrow.
“It’s not new for Golden Thread to shed light on the Palestinian perspective in this decades-long oppression, but perhaps what’s new is focusing the entire season on this. This season takes a firm stance with humanity, with the oppressed. Through the art of theater, and through each of our programs, we are deliberately choosing to provide a crucial historical context to the current War on Gaza, countering the false narrative that the injustice began on Oct. 7.”
Assaf has had particular interest in presenting “Returning to Haifa,” which covers the Six-Day War of 1967, a historical event that—like the Nakba, Balfour Declaration and Oslo Accords—is under- or misrepresented in mainstream media that lack Palestinian perspectives. It was after a Lebanese production of the play that Assaf met Taha, who describes her life being the daughter of a Palestinian martyr in the autobiographical solo show “Where Do I Find Someone Like You, Ali?”
Both works align with Assaf’s goal to not only highlight Palestinian perspectives and history, but to ensure that Golden Thread’s performance venues are safe spaces.
“We are creating a space for real, open dialogue, and a space for our impacted community to gather, connect and share in the hope of finding healing and understanding,” she says. “I am hoping our audiences who don’t know much about the situation will join us in good faith to listen and learn more. I would love for Mayor London Breed and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, for instance, to attend and listen to these stories. Perhaps if they saw Palestinians as human beings, they would take action to stop the genocide or at the very least (in the case of the former house speaker) refrain from spreading misinformation about the situation. It is truly shameful for our collective humanity that such atrocities are permitted in this day and age.”
Asked to describe Golden Thread’s ideal audience, Assaf says, “[Civil] servants, leaders, politicians—individuals with the power and capacity to enact change, yet they remain indifferent or complicit to protect their own political agendas. It’s a call in for everyone and anyone who cares about justice. Perhaps we will be able to join forces as artists and leverage our platforms to uplift the voices of many American citizens calling for a ceasefire and an end to this oppression.”
At the same time, Assaf is optimistic about the collective Palestinian talent she and her collaborators have assembled.
“We have gathered a wonderful community council for the season made up of 10 intergenerational artists and community members of different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, etc. It’s people like them that make me optimistic. They are my reminder that we must never underestimate our collective strength when standing together against injustice.”
Golden Thread Productions’ “What Do the Women Say?” is at 8 p.m. March 8 (with pre-show activities at 6:30 p.m.) at Brava Theatre Center, 2781 24th St., San Francisco. Tickets, $25-$100, and details about the 2024 season, are at goldenthread.org.
Charles Lewis III is a San Francisco-born journalist and performing artist. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and San Francisco Examiner. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.wordpress.com.