Pictured: Azhar Usman

Silk Road Rising has announced its 2016/17 season, featuring a premiere by the well-known Chicago stand-up comedian Azhar Usman, a holiday solo musical, a staged reading series tapping into Israeli-Palestinian relations, and a Dickens adaptation in collaboration with Remy Bumppo.

ULTRA AMERICAN: A PATRIOT ACT is a solo piece (written and performed by Usman) that promises to explore “the tensions and paradoxes surrounding the double consciousness of American Muslims living in an ever-polarizing modern world.” It runs from September 6th through 25th.

CHRISTMAS AT CHRISTINE’S, another solo show, is written & performed by Christine Bunuan. The musical piece journeys from California to Chicago to the Philippines to a Catholic-Jewish household, as Christine sings her way through a holiday songbook. December 1st through the 23rd.

SEMITIC COMMONWEALTH, A staged reading series, comprised of six plays by Arab and Jewish playwrights exploring the human toll of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, will be curated by Jamil Khoury, Michael Malek Najjar, and Corey Pond for February 10 through 26.

Finally, the previously announced collaboration with Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, an adaptation of Dicken’s GREAT EXPECTATIONS onto a 19th century Bengali landscape by Tanika Gupta runs May 11th through June 2nd. This exciting pairing of companies will be co-directed by Lavina Jadhwani & Nick Sandys.