Daaimah Mubashshir is a playwright and theatre-maker. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater and 3 Hole Press. Awards include a 2020-2022 WP Theater Lab Fellowship, 2019-2022 Core Writer Fellowship (Playwrights' Center, MN), an 2018 Audrey Residency (New Georges), a MacDowell Fellowship, a Catwalk Institute Residency, a Foundation of Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. She is also a proud alumna of Fire This Time Festival.
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).
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.
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 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.
Set in an artist colony far away, Maker, an overweight black artist, loses at love but finds herself.
Illustrated by Nell Painter. Published by 3 Hole Press.
Inspired by a selection of Chris Ofili’s paintings, Rum for Salefollows Max Tate, and his wife, Nikki, to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Max believes he is to take over The Lime Bar and Sugar Plantation his grandfather left him. But oopsie-daisy, the property was actually left to the other grandson 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
Successes
Daaimah Mubashshir's play, "Room Enough (For Us All), workshopped at PWC is appearing as part of WP's 2022 Pipeline Fesetival. Fatimah, a recently widowed mother, is determined to have it all. In an attempt to set things right by her queer daughter, Jamillah, she invites her to return home after a 10-year absence from the family. Fatimah plans to bring a new progressive Eid Holiday Festival to Masjid Al-Noor, but her son, Abdullah, feels that in order to protect the family legacy, he needs to fight against these changes. Room Enough (For Us All) is an insightful journey into the struggle of one contemporary African-American Muslim family to come together, despite everything trying to tear them apart.
Daaimah Mubashshir has been named as a 2021 Residency for Black Women Theatre Makers* recipient. The residency is a four-month period of process-oriented creative support provided to artists from around the world, facilitataed by PlayCo. The program provides financial support, time for new work development and artistic experimentation, and connectivity and community-building with fellow resident artists and PlayCo’s local and international networks. Full announcement here.
Join us for a year filled with boundary-pushing work by Women+ artists that challenge what theater is today. From another exhilarating collaboration with Monica Bill Barnes & Co., a choose-your-own-adventure audio exploration of WP’s theater space, a deeply moving, funny and theatrically adventurous play by WP Lab Alumni Charly Evon Simpson, and the cultivation of a cohort of evolving artists with The Pipeline Festival and viBe Pages to Stages, we can't wait to welcome you back to WP.
Want to catch the best new work by the most exciting new artists in town? Wondering where to meet the next generation of incredible Women+ theatermakers? Don’t miss WP’s Pipeline Festival, a unique opportunity to see five new plays, created by five collaborative teams from WP Theater’s celebrated two-year Lab residency.
Bard College is pleased to announce that Daaimah Mubashshir will join the College’s Theater and Performance Program as Playwright in Residence, effective fall 2021. A playwright and theater-maker, Mubashshir 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.”
Daaimah Mubashshir will join Bard College’s Theater and Performance Program as Playwright in Residence, effective fall 2021.