Cambridge playwright Amy Merrill collaborated with Iraqi artist Elham Nasser Al-Zabeedy to create “The Song Which Has Forgotten to Grow Older,” a play with music. The play will be performed twice in June – Friday, June 15, 2018, 7 PM, Atlantic Wharf in Boston and Sunday, June 24, 2018, Arts at the Armory in Somerville – as part of Her Story Is, an evening of performances and presentations co-created by female artists in Iraq and the US.
We asked Amy about the journey of this unique international collaboration, and more from her work and life as a playwright and theater artist.
What are the origins of the Her Story Is project?
Her Story Is, dialogue and presentation between female artists from Iraq and the Boston area, is the latest chapter in an ongoing collaborative people-to-people project between artists Iraq and the Boston area. Back in 2010, Anne Loyer, a local visual artist, and Amir al-Azaki, a playwright and professor at the University of Basra, began speaking and presenting work. Gradually, Fort Point Theater Channel became involved, producing Amir’s plays The Land and Waiting for Gilgamesh. In 2016, Amir, Anne, Marc Miller from Fort Point, and I began organizing The Basra-Boston Project which, like Her Story Is, was a program of collaborative work between artists from the two countries.
What have you found most exciting about participating in Her Story Is?
Sitting, with three other artists from the Boston area, around the table in a hotel room in Dubai with three wonderful women artists from Iraq and three Iraqi translators, in December 2017. Waiting to begin. Learning how to connect. A close second is writing and rehearsing The Song Which Has Forgotten to Grow Older, a play written by Elham Nasser al-Zabeedy and me.
Do you work on multiple projects simultaneously or do you prefer to focus on one at a time?
Recently, I have had the good fortune to have a number of projects on my plate. I like feeling as though I can go back and forth, that I can be nimble. Also, it’s important for me to show to myself and others that I can write about all kinds of things in all kinds of ways. In addition to the collaborative Her Story Is work, I have been working hard on my new play, Ardent Girls, about the real-life 1896 encounter between reformer Jane Addams and Leo Tolstoy.
The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:
Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire.
How do you know when your work is done?
It’s never done. I just step away from a particular project or dream up new plays that reflect my obsessions of the time.
There are common themes to my work, like improbable encounters, but recently I am focusing on plays that are built around an historical event. Jane Addam’s 1896 visit with Tolstoy. The response of a veteran of the Iraq war to the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad.
What are you currently reading?
Murder mysteries and books related to my play projects. Recently, I was inspired by Miriam Cooke’s Women and the War Story. The poems and writing of Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi poet and activist, who left Iraq in 1996 and now lives in the Detroit area.
What films have influenced you as an artist?
Memorable film(s): Coming Home, with Bruce Dern, Jane Fonda, and John Voigt. A former nurse, I love the hospital scenes. Robert Altman’s Nashville.
Her Story Is has two upcoming performances: Friday, June 15, 2018, 7 PM, Atlantic Wharf in Boston and Sunday, June 24, 2018, Arts at the Armory in Somerville. Art by several of the Iraqi women in the project, including Elham Al-Zabaedy, will exhibit at Atlantic Wharf (June 7-22, 2018).
Amy Merrill is a playwright, producer, and author of many plays. A former nurse, she founded Blackbird Plays and Productions, LLC and is a member of The Dramatists Guild, the Brandeis University Arts Council and Alumni Board. Amy is a board member for Fort Point Theatre Channel and on the Ambassador Council for Israeli Stage. Her play Ardent Girls recently had a reading at Central Square Theater.
Images: (both photos courtesy of Amy Merrill) artists meeting in Dubai in 2017 to develop HER STORY IS, l-r: Jennifer Jean, Nadia Sekran, Dina Fadil, Anne Loyer, Amy Merrill, Lillie Paquette, Thaira Mayyahi, Elham Nasser al-Zabeedy, Mary Mohsen; photo of Amy Merrill.
carolyn wilkins says
I saw this play when it was read in Somerville last year. Fabulous. Congratulations, Amy!
AMY MERRILL says
Actually, this is a new play that I co-wrote with Elham Nasser al-Zabedy, one of the Her Story Is artists (second to R). It’s called The Song Which Has Forgotten to Grow Older, and features Berklee student Nano Raies (vocals) and Mohamed Salah (oud. Come and see on June 24, 7pm Arts in the Armory, 191 Highland Ave, Somerville. Free and open to the public.
Thanks for reaching out, Carolyn!