Mona Mansour is an Arab-American playwright based in New York. Her play We Swim, We Talk, We Go To War, directed by Evren Odcikin, will premiere at Golden Thread in 2018. The Vagrant Trilogy premieres at Mosaic Theater in D.C. in June 2018, directed by Mark Wing-Davey. It was presented at New Dramatists in fall 2016 after a workshop at the Vineyard Arts Project with the Public Theater. Part of the trilogy: The Hour Of Feeling (directed by Wing-Davey) premiered at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and a new Arabic translation was presented at NYU Abu Dhabi, as part of its Arab Voices Festival in 2016. Urge For Going had productions at Public LAB (directed by Hal Brooks), and Golden Thread (directed by Odcikin). The Vagrant was workshopped at the 2013 Sundance Theater Institute. Other plays include: The Way West: Labyrinth Theater (directed by Mimi O’Donnell), Steppenwolf (directed by Amy Morton), and Marin Theatre Company (directed by Hayley Finn). With Tala Manassah she wrote Falling Down The Stairs, about 1970s Iraq, an EST/Sloan Commission, as well as Dressing, for the New Black Fest's collection of plays called “Facing Our Truth: Ten Minute Plays On Trayvon, Race And Privilege.” Other credits: Unseen, Gift Theater Chicago (directed by Maureen Payne-Hahner) and In The Open, for Waterwell (directed by James Dean Palmer). Commissions include Playwrights Horizons, Old Globe Theater, La Jolla Playhouse and Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s “American Revolutions.” 2012 Whiting Award. 2014 Middle East America Playwright Award.
At MacDowell, Mona spent many hours listening to actors' improvisations recorded last November in a workshop at New Dramatists, transcribing the dialogue as well as letting it spur on new writing, all toward a play in the works for a La Jolla Playhouse commission. Mona was recently elected to the Dramatists Guild Council.
