Yasmine Beverly Rana

Yasmine Beverly Rana

Yasmine Beverly Rana’s latest play, After Rome was produced at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem (2022). Rana was the cover story of 2022 201 Magazine’s The Arts Issue. Plays have been developed and presented at theaters including Women’s Work Festival of Newfoundland Canada, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Tara Arts of London, among others. Fellowships and grants include a NJ State Council on the Arts...
Yasmine Beverly Rana’s latest play, After Rome was produced at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem (2022). Rana was the cover story of 2022 201 Magazine’s The Arts Issue. Plays have been developed and presented at theaters including Women’s Work Festival of Newfoundland Canada, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Tara Arts of London, among others. Fellowships and grants include a NJ State Council on the Arts TRANSITional Art Project, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Award in Playwriting, and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship. The War Zone is My Bed was a Francesca Primus Prize finalist. Publications include The Pirandello Society of America Journal,The Alabama Literary Review, Blackbird, The Contemporary European Idea, The Kenyon Review, Lilith, TDR: The Drama Review, and anthologies, The Best Contemporary Monologues, The Best Stage Scenes, and The Best Men’s and Women’s Monologues (Smith and Kraus and Applause Books). The University of Chicago Press and Seagull Books ``In Performance Series`` anthologized four of Yasmine’s plays in The War Zone is My Bed and Other Plays.
Website: yasminebeverlyrana.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playwrightyasminebeverly/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminebeverlyrana/

Plays

  • After Rome
    After Rome takes place over the course of an afternoon at the Trattoria Europa in Rome on
    April 5, 2017, the 25th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian War. Lara a Bosnian professor of linguistics visiting Rome for a conference, seeks out her closest childhood friend, Anna, now an Italian resident and proprietor of Trattoria Europa. Anna had experienced Bosnia throughout the war while Lara had left...
    After Rome takes place over the course of an afternoon at the Trattoria Europa in Rome on
    April 5, 2017, the 25th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian War. Lara a Bosnian professor of linguistics visiting Rome for a conference, seeks out her closest childhood friend, Anna, now an Italian resident and proprietor of Trattoria Europa. Anna had experienced Bosnia throughout the war while Lara had left at the beginning of the conflict in pursuit of an academic career. Neither woman has seen or been in contact with the other in twenty-five years. When Lara and Anna reunite at Anna’s establishment, the women engage in emotional discourse related to the origins of their parting, their Muslim heritage, Anna’s identity as an immigrant, Lara’s life in post-war Bosnia, the men they loved, and the city and people they lost.

  • Amanda
    In the office of an urban metropolis, a job interview becomes a court room for Amanda seeking justice from her interviewer who had been present twenty-five years ago during an assault.
  • Another Spring
    Another Spring is an exploration of democracy, its definition and implications viewed under the lens of the female protagonist, a university student and participant in the Arab Spring uprising in her unnamed country. In Act One, “Obscurity”, the young woman’s identity as female and her sexuality are under assault as she is conflicted between her role as citizen and woman. Her lover, a photographer, encourages...
    Another Spring is an exploration of democracy, its definition and implications viewed under the lens of the female protagonist, a university student and participant in the Arab Spring uprising in her unnamed country. In Act One, “Obscurity”, the young woman’s identity as female and her sexuality are under assault as she is conflicted between her role as citizen and woman. Her lover, a photographer, encourages her to use an image of her body as a symbol of democracy and freedom. Within the confines of a dorm room, a photograph, that will change both their lives, is taken and posted through social media. In Act Two, “The Confession”, the veil of obscurity has been lifted to reveal a psychological game between an undergraduate Londoner and a respected journalist, still haunted from the face of democracy he had profiled in Act One.
    Character Breakdown
  • At the Barre
    The women at the barre tell their stories and discover inspiration and empowerment in the sacred space of a ballet barre class in New York City. This beginner class is diverse in body size and age with the youngest being nineteen and the eldest, eighty. Their life experiences include sexual assault, breast cancer, an arranged marriage, the deportation of a spouse, and war in Syria. Their cultural identities...
    The women at the barre tell their stories and discover inspiration and empowerment in the sacred space of a ballet barre class in New York City. This beginner class is diverse in body size and age with the youngest being nineteen and the eldest, eighty. Their life experiences include sexual assault, breast cancer, an arranged marriage, the deportation of a spouse, and war in Syria. Their cultural identities include Russian, Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, and Central American. Despite their differences in age and life, they are unified by their desire and need to embrace and express themselves through their bodies. With the advent of movements including Me Too and DACA, the women at the barre share moments of warmth, humor, and encouragement at a most relevant time in history.
  • Blood Sky
    As Joley looks back on the events that have shaped her life, her past comes alive on stage. As the memories of her abusive childhood, her journey to escape it, and the charming man in the white suit who’s at the heart of it all come rushing back to her, Joley struggles to take control of her past, and to keep it from defining her future.
  • Coffee At The Hague
    It's just an ordinary day with endless cups of coffee for a war criminal, a law student, a wounded journalist, and her lover trapped within an obscure web of morality spun throughout an International Criminal Court case and a Red Light District.
  • The Fallen
    From the systematic rape camps of Kalinovik to the rooftops of Sarajevo, the bottom of the Adriatic Sea, and the balconies of Turin, comes a moment of discovery at a time of persecution for the survivors of rape and their children born from it during the Bosnian War. The Fallen gives breath to the stories of the war’s women, children, and their struggle for self-acceptance and reconciliation.
  • Fauna and Blood
    Dia, a West African immigrant and Ayesha, a South Asian immigrant, meet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's rooftop against the backdrop of artist Imran Qureshi's exhibit which evokes hope for those who've arrived in their new country and melancholy for those left behind.
  • Leaf Cutters
    Willow's recent environmental documentary evokes interest from a powerful humanitarian whose interests are not solely related to her film's content.
  • Leena and Rose At the Barre
    Leena and Rose, immigrant women, share a moment at a ballet studio amidst a climate of family separation and deportations. This play will be presented at the International Human Rights Art Festival at the Wild Project in December 2019.
  • Olomouc
    Kat, an American writer is invited to spend her summer at an artist colony in a mysterious Moravian village. Her idyllic notions of a technology-free space to write her non-traveler’s travel guide are quelled when she learns the colony isn’t what Kat had envisioned. Following this alarming discovery, Kat finds herself conflicted between the affections of a Viennese biker and an American translator of Czech...
    Kat, an American writer is invited to spend her summer at an artist colony in a mysterious Moravian village. Her idyllic notions of a technology-free space to write her non-traveler’s travel guide are quelled when she learns the colony isn’t what Kat had envisioned. Following this alarming discovery, Kat finds herself conflicted between the affections of a Viennese biker and an American translator of Czech poetry in this comedy about a New Yorker finding love in the woods of Eastern Europe.
  • Paradise
    As the Mississippi River rises, two lovers who are also illegal immigrants, debate whether they should stay in New Orleans and risk their lives or flee—and, thereby reveal their illegal status
  • Returning
    A photographer from Sarajevo is torn between his role as an artist and as a survivor of war.
  • Scarred
    Married couple, Laurel, a war correspondent, and Ahmed, an Oxford academic use London Heathrow Airport's Holiday Inn hotel to spend quality time in between her assignments in the war zone. He wants her to stop and stay with him in academic suburbia while she awaits for the next humanitarian catastrophe.
  • The War Zone Is My Bed
    In The War Zone is My Bed, a prostitute from Kabul and a journalist from Bosnia stumble through a maze of brutality to find solace within each other.