Heather Raffo is an award-winning playwright and actress whose work has been seen off-Broadway, off-West End, in regional theater, and in film. She is the author and solo performer of the play 9 Parts of Desire (Lucielle Lortel award, Blackburn, Drama League, OCC, Helen Hayes nominations), which The New Yorker called “an example of how art can remake the world.” 9 Parts of Desire has been performed across America and internationally for over a decade with current productions in Greece, Hungary and India.

Raffo’s newest play, NOURA (Weissberger Award, Helen Hayes Award Best Original Play) had its world premiere at the Shakespeare Theater before moving to Abu Dhabi and NYC. It can next be seen in multiple regional theaters in their 2019/2020 season. Her libretto for the opera FALLUJAH, developed as part of Kennedy Center’s International Theater Festival, premiered at Long Beach Opera in 2016 then moved to New York City Opera. A film of the opera aired on PBS accompanied by a documentary titled Fallujah: Art, Healing and PTSD.

Heather is the recipient of multiple grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to use theater as a means of bridge building between her Eastern and Western cultures. Her work has taken her to the Kennedy Center, The Aspen Ideas Festival, London’s House of Commons, the U.S. Islamic World Forum, and into hundreds of classrooms across our nation and internationally.