In Part Five of the Rebuilding Syria collection, host Jamil Khoury examines the role of Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al Sharaa, in recent sectarian massacres targeting Alawite, Druze, and Christian communities.
Throughout the episode, Khoury examines how religious and ethnic communities are being targeted and killed, how gender-based violence is being utilized as a weapon of war, how Sunni Muslim diversity of thought is being suppressed, and how the international response has failed to reckon with the regime’s actions.
Silk Road Cultural Center, About Face Theatre, and Northeastern Illinois University are partnering to present the first Chicago staged reading of the Say Gay Plays project. Say Gay Plays is an initiative of New York City's Voyage Theater Company aimed at countering harmful anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric. The project involves the commissioning of short 10-minute plays by Queer playwrights, and producing royalty-free readings of the plays. The Chicago staged reading of Say Gay Plays will feature new works by local playwrights, and explore the intersection of Queer joy and activism.
Silk Road Cultural Center's Jamil Khoury speaks with Assyrian American theater artist, Atra Asdou, about her new play "Iraq, But Funny," premiering at Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company, May 29 - July 20, 2025.
The conversation also explores Assyrian identity in the diaspora, and a Who's Who of Assyrian American art makers.
For more information about the production, read HERE
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