Sameer Arshad
Sameer Arshad is a Persian-Turk-Arab-Indian-Pakistani playwright, writer, actor, animator, filmmaker, comic maker, and visual artist based in Seattle. Several of Sameer's plays have received productions in the Seattle area, including Crewmates (2018, Annex Theatre) and Alice in Arabialand (2025, Annex Theatre), as well as short works at 14/48 Projects, ReAct Theatre, Infinity Box Theatre, One Table Theater, and Instant Noodles Festival. Sameer has also acted in several productions in the Seattle area, with Centerstage Theatre, Macha Theatre Works, Parley Productions, One Table Theater and SOAC. Sameer is a trained linguist and also provides services in cultural consulting and dialect training. You can find several of his Seattle theatre reviews on the Sound on Stage website.
June Rugh
June Rugh is a writer in the tech industry who also does publicity and social media for progressive artists and small businesses. She grew up partly in Lebanon, where her mother was born and raised. Witnessing the lives of Palestinians in Lebanon's refugee camps is the basis of June's activism for Palestine. In recent years, she has volunteered with the PCRF, helped organize Seattle's Team Palestine, and worked closely with Faisal Saleh to establish Palestine Museum US. June joined Dunya Productions because she believes that live performance and shared experience move people more deeply and inspire them towards action more than news or statistics ever could.
Rita Zawaideh
Rita was born in Jordan and grew up in Seattle. Through the years she has maintained close ties to the Arab world, as well as to the Arab-American communities throughout the U.S. She founded the Salaam Cultural Museum (SCM) to raise awareness of Arab American cultures and provide support to refugees and immigrants both locally and internationally. Rita is owner and founder of Caravan-Serai Tours, a Seattle travel agency specializing in the Middle East and North Africa. Through her travel agency network she has organized volunteer trips and donation drives for refugees in the Middle East and North Africa since the 1980s. She often labors into the wee hours of the night to solve a person’s problem, putting that person in touch with a lawyer, a city council member, a school principal, a church contact, perhaps even someone who lives on the other side of the country. No one is turned away.
Jen Marlowe
Jen Marlowe is an author/filmmaker/playwright and human rights activist. Her most recent film (based on her documentary play) is There Is A Field focused on Black-Palestinian solidarity. Her most recent book is I Am Troy Davis, written with innocent death row prisoner Troy Davis (who was ultimately executed in 2011) and his sister. Her previous books include The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker, and Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival. Her films include Remembering the Gaza War, Witness Bahrain, One Family in Gaza, Rebuilding Hope: Sudan’s Lost Boys Return Home and Darfur Diaries: Message from Home. For more information about Jen’s work, visit www.donkeysaddle.org.
George Kassis
George Kassis holds a couple of graduate degrees in Engineering and Business, and spent 28 years working for the Boeing company before deciding to retire in early 2021. Though George does not have any theater background, he is into all forms of art, primarily music. George plays the oud and enjoy the classical music of the Arab world. Born and raised in the Galilee area of Palestine, George came to US to study, then settled in Seattle in the late 1980s.
William Hanna
Growing up locally with Palestinian and Lebanese parents kept my attention on the ever-changing political situations of those communities. As an adult, I maintain a heartfelt relationship with people in the Middle East and beyond who share the struggle for equality and freedom, and I attempt to be a part of their positive changes in the world. My personal endeavors in performing and supporting local live music led me to join my friends in growing Dunya Productions, a theater company that brings the voices of MENA/SWANA people to this wonderful medium.
Manal AlSharif
Manal AlSharif - (she/her) is a Palestinian immigrant born in Kuwait who moved to the United States to pursue higher education, earning a B.S. in Math/Computer Science and an MBA. For the past 16 years, she has been involved in theatre as a volunteer usher at both Union Theatre and Seattle Rep, developing a deep appreciation for the ways theatre brings people and communities together.
As a co-founding member of Dunya Productions, Manal is excited to be part of the driving force helping MENA theatre grow and flourish in the Pacific Northwest. She looks forward to learning more about what it takes to build and sustain a vibrant MENA theatre community in the region. She is also excited about the possibility of bringing Arab films to Dunya Productions’ screen soon, creating more opportunities for audiences to experience and connect with Arab stories and culture.
Edward Mast
Edward Mast’s plays have been performed in several cities and countries, and he was returning home from his first of many trips to the Occupied Palestinian West Bank when he met Hanna Eady.
Hanna Eady
Hanna Eady is a Palestinian American theater artist, playwright, director, actor, and producer.
He founded the first theater in his native village of Buqayah (Peqiin), where he wrote his first play, Art and Politics. He later founded New Image Theater in Seattle, Washington, writing and directing world premieres including Abraham’s Land and Bosnia-Moya.
In 1993, Eady returned to his homeland to create a docudrama about internally displaced Palestinians in Israel. He has written and collaborated on several plays with playwright Edward Mast, including Sahmatah, Memory of Stones, The Return (Oved Shabbat), and The Mulberry Tree. The Return premiered at Al-Midan Theatre in Haifa, Palestine, with its U.S. premiere at Mosaic Theater in Washington, D.C., followed by productions at Dunya Productions in Seattle and Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. The Mulberry Tree received its world premiere at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York.
Eady’s other work includes directing Seeing Double with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and Two Rooms by Lee Blessing. As an actor, he played Ibrahim in Motti Lerner’s The Admission in both its U.S. production and Hebrew-language production at Al-Saraya Theater in Jaffa. With Alhaneen Theater in Nazareth, he wrote and directed the black comedy Love Tunnel and Hajjar El-Arab (Hajjar, Bishop of All Arabs).
In 2019, Eady founded Dunya Productions in Seattle, where he has continued to develop and produce new work, including Flood, created with Jenna Eady; Letters from Palestine in the Time of COVID; and Loved Ones: Families of the Incarcerated, co-created with Edward Mast. His most recent world premiere is Almonds Blossom in Deir Yassin.
Eady holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington School of Drama, a BFA in Theater from the University of Wisconsin, and a BA in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Haifa. His work explores history, displacement, identity, memory, and the intersections of Palestinian and American experiences through theater.
Adem Hayyuu
Adem Hayyu is a Lighting Designer for Theater based in Seattle. He is also the Founder + CEO of SkyLit Designs, LLC., an event production company that provides access to resources and educational services on event production to underserved communities.
Beth Mahmoud-Howell
Founding company member Beth is a theatre arts activist and organizer, director, playwright, producer, designer, and educator. She directs locally at Woodinville Repertory Theatre and the Elderberry Company. Her play Reclaiming Grounds was featured in The Powerstories Voices of Women Theatre Festival 2022. She is one of the founders of the Seattle Middle East Peace Camp for children and as a Muslim woman, mother of three Palestinian-American identified children and grandchild, her life has been dedicated to create and produce Palestinian justice artistic work.
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