Daaimah Mubashshir

Daaimah Mubashshir

Daaimah Mubashshir is a playwright and theatre-maker. Awards include New York Community Trust's 2021 Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, 2021 PlayCo Residency for Black Women Theatre Makers, 2020-2022 WP Theater Lab Fellowship, 2019-2022 Core Writer Fellowship (Playwrights Center, MN), an 2018 Audrey Residency (New Georges), a MacDowell Fellowship, and a Foundation of Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant....
Daaimah Mubashshir is a playwright and theatre-maker. Awards include New York Community Trust's 2021 Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, 2021 PlayCo Residency for Black Women Theatre Makers, 2020-2022 WP Theater Lab Fellowship, 2019-2022 Core Writer Fellowship (Playwrights Center, MN), an 2018 Audrey Residency (New Georges), a MacDowell Fellowship, and a Foundation of Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. She is also a proud alumna of Fire This Time Festival.

Daaimah is currently on faculty at Bard College and has also been a guest speaker at Yale School of Drama, Williams College, Skidmore College, and Kennesaw State University.

Her published works include Molasses and A Blue Coat - Kenyon Review Online, The Zero Loop (No Tokens Journal), Come with Me - Solve for X in The Occasional 2, edited by Will Arbery (53rd State Press), and The Immeasurable Want of Light (MacDowell, 3 Hole Press). Selected stage plays include Night of Power, Room Enough (MacDowell, Fire This Time Festival, Clubbed Thumb, Pride Plays, Playwrights Center), The Chronicles of Cardigan and Khente and Emily Black is A Total Gift (New Georges).

She is the Artistic Director of {EDAP} which produces moving image work, text and performance to give audiences a kinetic experience of black bodies freeing themselves from the bondage of our past.

Plays

  • Room Enough (For Us All) by Daaimah Mubashshir
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: family, black + 3 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: family, black, queer, Progressive Muslim, Islamic Identity
    Room Enough is centered on a contemporary African-American Muslim Family coming to terms with how to treat queerness up against long-standing ideals and faith. Fatimah, a recently widowed matriarch, is determined to have it all. She wants the opportunity to set right a 10 year mistake by inviting, Jamillah, her queer daughter, to return home after a long forced absence. Can she have it all when, Abdullah, her...
    Room Enough is centered on a contemporary African-American Muslim Family coming to terms with how to treat queerness up against long-standing ideals and faith. Fatimah, a recently widowed matriarch, is determined to have it all. She wants the opportunity to set right a 10 year mistake by inviting, Jamillah, her queer daughter, to return home after a long forced absence. Can she have it all when, Abdullah, her son, is driven to fight against this decision even though he loves his mother deeply.
  • The Immeasurable Want of Light by Daaimah Mubashshir
    Cast: 
    15–33
    ·
    Genre: fantasy, pageant
    ·
    Keyword: episodic, financial crisis + 6 more
    Genre: fantasy, pageant
    Keyword: episodic, financial crisis, Illustrated by Nell Painter, epic poetry, multilingual, black, queer, Ella Fitzgerald
    The Immeasurable Want of Light is an episodic play that reflects on Black bodies through the poetics of the star formation process, from dark matter to supernova. Set in an imagined galaxy/artist colony, we track Maker’s journey into visibility, while a pageant of characters unfolds a galactic experience.

  • Emily Black is a Total Gift ( A Musical) by Daaimah Mubashshir
    Cast: 
    5–20
    ·
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy + 3 more
    Genre: adventure, dark comedy, experimental, musical, political
    Living in the city is rough but Emily Black is magical. When Mrs. Pounds is at her wit's end Emily swoops in to save the whole Pound Family. With all these magical powers, why isn't Emily saving herself?
    Emily Black... excavates the darker side of Mary Poppins — the iconic work of writer P.L. Travers — and creates a musical five-borough tour of New York City that examines class, race, and bad candy.
  • The Chronicles of Cardigan and Khente by Daaimah Mubashshir
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, experimental + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: black, queer + 5 more
    Genre: dark comedy, experimental, fable/folktale, movement/physical
    Keyword: black, queer, corporate culture, mascots, bittersweet love story, black love, black actors
    The Chronicles of Cardigan and Khente—which centers the experience of two black corporate executives as they navigate climbing the ladder toward financial liberation. In the style of a Post – Black Minstrelsy, Cardigan and Khente’s first question is: Why does success and freedom always come down to “what do they think of us?””
  • Rum for Sale by Daaimah Mubashshir
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: Afro-Caribbean, Property + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: Afro-Caribbean, Property, couples, Where is Home?
    Inspired by a selection of Chris Ofili’s paintings, Rum for Sale follows C. Max Tate, and his wife, Nikki, to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Max believes he is to take over The Lime Bar and Distillery his grandfather left him. But oopsie-daisy, the property was actually left to the other grandson C. Aufidius Tate. So there was some sloppy record keeping and of course, neither Tate is willing to give up easily. Where...
    Inspired by a selection of Chris Ofili’s paintings, Rum for Sale follows C. Max Tate, and his wife, Nikki, to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Max believes he is to take over The Lime Bar and Distillery his grandfather left him. But oopsie-daisy, the property was actually left to the other grandson C. Aufidius Tate. So there was some sloppy record keeping and of course, neither Tate is willing to give up easily. Where rum is involved, yes, there are often battle lines to draw, heartbreak and despair but oh it's nothing but sweet paradise going down.
  • There is Something About a Clockface by Daaimah Mubashshir
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: twins, reconciliation
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: twins, reconciliation
    Minana comes home after being in America for 5 years. She decides to throw a party. How was America? What are you going to do next? Is it a Homecoming or Homegoing party? Either way Minana has a single answer for all the questions. There is Something about a Clockface asks what happens when you get your freedom and you find it’s not what you imagined.