Returning to Haifa

Ghassan Kanafani

Ghassan Kanafani was one of the most prominent Arab novelists and modernist playwrights whose pen made him a target for the Israeli Mossad, who assassinated him at the age of thirty-six years old. Using the words of Palestinian actor and storyteller Raeda Taha, in her new play The Gazelle of Aka about the life and death of Ghassan Kanafani, she writes: “Ghassan was a journalist, political activist, and the spokesman for the PFLP (The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). He used to paint, draw, sculpt, and constantly sketch. He loved drawing - and especially enjoyed gifting his drawings to his friends […] Ghassan wrote Life. He wrote about his love of songs, music, and literature. He wrote about his childhood memories as a refugee, he wrote about the refugee camps. He wrote about the Nakba and the collective expulsion. He wrote about his assassination.”

His novella Returning to Haifa, one of the most important works in contemporary Palestinian literature, was first published in 1969 and was translated into various languages, including Japanese, English, Russian, and Persian.

Naomi Wallace

Naomi Wallace’s plays have been produced in the United States, the U.K., Europe and the Middle East and include One Flea Spare, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, In the Heart of America, The Breach, Things of Dry Hours, The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East, And I and Silence, Night is a Room, The Return of Benjamin Lay (co-written with Marcus Rediker) and an adaptation of Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani and The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon (both adaptations co-written with Ismail Khalidi). Awards include the MacArthur Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, Horton Foote Award, Obie, Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the inaugural Windham Campbell prize for drama. Wallace is currently writing the book for the Loretta Lynn musical, and new John Mellencamp musical Small Town. Wallace is presently co-writing a new play with Ismail Khalidi for Ashtar theater in Ramallah.

Ismail Khalidi

Born in Beirut to Palestinian parents and raised in Chicago, Ismail Khalidi is a playwright and director who has written, directed, performed, curated and taught internationally. Khalidi’s plays include Tennis in Nablus (Alliance Theatre, 2010), Truth Serum Blues (Pangea World Theater, 2005), Foot (Teatro Amal, 2016-17), Sabra Falling (Pangea World Theater, 2017), Returning to Haifa (Finborough Theatre, 2018) and Dead Are My People (Noor Theatre, 2019). Khalidi’s plays have been published in numerous anthologies. His writing on politics and culture has appeared in The Nation, Guernica, American Theatre Magazine, and Remezcla. His poetry and plays have been published by Mizna , and he co-edited Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora (TCG, 2015). Khalidi has received commissions from the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Noor Theatre, Pangea World Theatre, and The Public Theatre, and is currently a Visiting Artist at Teatro Amal in Chile. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Samer Al-Saber

Samer Al-Saber is an Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University. He is affiliated with the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. His work appeared in Theatre Research International, Alt.Theatre, Performance Paradigm, Critical Survey, Theatre Survey, Jadaliyya, Counterpunch, This Week In Palestine, and various edited volumes, such as Palgrave’s Performing For Survival, and Edinburgh Press’ Being Palestinian. He is co-editor of the anthology Stories Under Occupation and Other Plays from Palestine (Seagull Press/University of Chicago Press) and editor of To The Good People of Gaza (Bloomsbury Press). Directing credits include Betty Shamieh’s As Soon As Impossible, Hasan Abdelrazzak’s The Prophet, Arthur Milner’s Facts, and a Palestinian adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (in Arabic). As playwright, most recently in 2023, he wrote and directed Decolonizing Sarah for Chicago’s Uprising Theater. He is currently directing Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace’s adaption of Ghassan Kanafani’s Returning To Haifa for Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco.

Marina Johnson

Marina Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in TAPS at Stanford University (M.F.A in Directing, University of Iowa). Her dissertation research focuses on Palestinian performance from 2015 to the present. Johnson is the co-host of Kunafa and Shay, a MENA theatre podcast produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons, and they are also a member of Silk Road Rising’s Polycultural Institute. Johnson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Theatre/Practice, Arab Stages, Decolonizing Dramaturgy in a Global Context (Bloomsbury), Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders and Sexualities (Routledge), Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance, Volume I: Performers (Bloomsbury). Prior to her Ph.D., she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College for three years. Most recently, Johnson directed The Wolves at Stanford University, dramaturged two plays in Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient Festival, and directed The Shroud Maker with the International Voices Project. www.marina-johnson.com

Diala Al-Abed

Diala Al-Abed (she/her) is a Palestinian actor born in the North Carolina mountains. It is in North Carolina that she obtained her BFA in Theatre Performance and Dance Studies at UNC Charlotte where she trained in various disciplines including but not limited to: modern dance, aerial arts, and Commedia dell’arte. Credits include The Long Christmas Ride Home and Servant of Two Masters. She would later go on to train in film acting techniques and scene study under the teachings of Lon Baumgarner in a Stanislavski style approach, as well as on camera techniques and stage acting through the training of Kevin Patrick Murphy. Her love for acting stems from her fascination in human connection and a scene’s ability to enforce the confrontations of one’s own emotions and self. When she’s not in a class or doing scene work, you can find her on a nature walk, thrifting, or working on film photography.

Amal Bisharat

Amal Bisharat (she/her) is a Palestinian American multidisciplinary artist: a theatre director, theatre maker, producer, actor, musician, and photographer. Bisharat holds a BA in Music and Theater from Minnesota State University-Moorhead and for 12 years worked as a director and music director in partnership with San Francisco Unified School District. Currently she works with Golden Thread Productions, recently co-producing and directing for their signature program ReOrient Festival of Short Plays (2023), and directing an online reading of The Gaza Monologues by Ashtar Theater (2023). Bisharat is also in the process of creating her first musical, Morning in Jenin Musical, a Palestinian refugee story adapted from the internationally best-selling novel by the same name by Susan Abulhawa. After many years hiatus from acting, she is thrilled to be returning to her roots this year to play the role of Safiyya in Golden Thread’s production of Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani, adapted for the stage by Naomi Wallace and Ismail Khalidi. Bisharat is a grateful recipient of the Theater Bay Area Arts Leadership Residency Grant (2022-2023), Theater Bay Area CA$H Creates Grant (2022), and San Francisco Arts Commission Artist Grant (2023).

Bisharat believes in the transformative power of art and storytelling whether on a stage, in a photograph, or in the stories we tell ourselves.

Jacob Henrie-Naffaa

Jacob Henrie-Naffaa is a Bay Area native actor, writer, director, educator, singer and dancer. He began performing professionally at the age of seven and has been seen performing on stages around the Bay since 2009. Favorite theatre credits include Sonny in In The Heights, Tulsa in Gypsy and Bullshot Crummond in Bullshot Crummond. In 2019, Jacob began exploring the world of camera acting, and has appeared in a large assortment of commercials and short films, favorite credits including Izzy in the Robert Cuccioli-directed She’s Blown Away, Charlie in Samsung’s SmartThings 2023 commercial and Me-Time Guy in Jolibee’s 2024 Jolibee Family Deals commercial. Jacob is also regularly seen on the popular YouTube channel Illumeably, appearing in multiple roles in various skits and short films. Jacob has a baritenor range and is trained in Hip-Hop, tap, jazz, ballet and modern dance styles. Jacob’s goal in life is to get an EGOT or die trying. He can next be seen as Cliff in CenterRep’s Cabaret this coming summer.

Lijesh Krishnan

Lijesh Krishnan grew up in Kuwait and India and spent a decade in the Twin Cities before making San Francisco his home. In the Bay Area, he has acted with African American Shakespeare, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread (On the Periphery, 2020), Marin Shakespeare, Aluminous, Altarena, Those Women Productions, Ninjaz of Drama, Theater of Others, and others. He is honored to be part of this cast and crew.

Michelle Navarrete

Michelle Navarrete (she/her) is a Theatre Artist, both on and off the stage. Born and raised in San Francisco, she fell in love with the performing arts and storytelling at an early age. After receiving her BFA in Acting from Marymount Manhattan College, she continued her career in NYC performing and producing theatre. In the Bay Area, Michelle has worked with SF Playhouse, Cal Shakes, TheatreFirst, Custom Made Theatre Co, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, Impact Theatre, Faultline Theatre, Theatre Cultura, to name a few. As a performer, educator and activist, she has made theatre and the performing arts part of her life and message. Thank you to my fighting Irish dad for being my biggest fan. Miss you pops!