9 Parts of Desire

TheatreUSF presents 9 Parts of Desire.

By Heather Raffo
Directed by Andrea Assaf

Nov. 12-14 and 19-21 at 7:30 p.m.
Nov. 15 and 22 at 3 p.m.
Theatre 2, USF Tampa Campus

A woman gestures angrily while holding a glass of liquor.

Three woman stand onstage in black, full-length body coverings, two with their hair covered by these coverings while one woman in the middle wears a colorful headscarf and is speaking.

A woman looks toward the right and is holding a gun tightly with both hands.

A painter stares intently while working on her canvas and holding what appears to be a palette.

A woman in a hijab and white lab coat has blood soaked on her clothes, she has a somber expression on her face.

This production of 9 Parts of Desire is a THIS Bridge Program project 鈥� collaboration between Art2Action and the 哔咔漫画 School of Theatre & Dance. For more information on upcoming THIS Bridge programming .

This award-winning play, written by Heather Raffo, was inspired by a trip to a modern art museum in Baghdad in August 1993 and details the lives of nine Iraqi women 鈥� a sexy painter, a radical Communist, doctors, exiles, wives and lovers. Described by The New Yorker as 鈥渁n example of how art can remake the world,鈥� this work delves into the many conflicting aspects of what it means to be a woman in a country overshadowed by war.

A THIS Bridge Program project -- collaboration between Art2Action and the 哔咔漫画 School of Theatre & Dance. This project is made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters - Building Bridges: Campus Community Engagement Grants Program, a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.

AWARD-WINNING IRAQI AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT, HEATHER RAFFO ON ART, DESIRE, AND CULTURAL DIPLOMACY

Art2Action Inc., in partnership with the 哔咔漫画, presents Heather Raffo and 9 Parts of Desire in the "Building Bridges" series, October-November 2015. As part of an ambitious and provocative series featuring Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim artists, THIS Bridge programming continues with Heather Raffo, award-winning Iraqi American playwright and actress. Raffo will give a special lecture and demonstration of her artistic work, with a talk on her role in Cultural Diplomacy, on Tuesday, October 20. While in residence, Raffo will work closely with 哔咔漫画 students and director Andrea Assaf on the rehearsals of her acclaimed play, 9 Parts of Desire, being produced this fall by the 哔咔漫画 School of Theatre & Dance.

LECTURE INFO:

Tuesday, October 20, 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.
Heather Raffo on Art, Desire & Cultural Diplomacy at The Patel Auditorium, Center for Global Solutions (CGS), 哔咔漫画. Co-sponsored by Art2Action, and the USF Department of Government & International Affairs. (Address: 4202 East Fowler Avenue, CGS building, first floor; parking off of USF Alumni Drive)

For more information on this play and the playwright Heather Raffo, including the awards this work has won, visit .

HEATHER RAFFO

Heather Raffo is the solo performer and writer of the Off Broadway hit, 9 Parts of Desire which details the lives of nine Iraqi women. For her creation and performance of 9 Parts and its national and international tour, Heather garnered many awards, including a Lucille Lortel Award and the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn and Marian Seldes- Garson Kanin playwriting awards, as well as Helen Hayes, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League nominations for outstanding performance.

Heather first performed 9 Parts of Desire in August 2003 at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. It later moved to the Bush Theatre in London鈥檚 Off-West End where critics hailed it as one of the five best plays in London in late 2003. Its Off Broadway premiere was at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, where the show ran for nine months and was a critic鈥檚 pick (of The New York Times, Time Out and Village Voice) for over twenty four weeks in a row. In 2009, Heather created a concert version of the play for The Kennedy Center with renowned Iraqi maqam musician, Amir ElSaffar.

9 Parts of Desire has been performed all over the United States and was one of the top five produced plays of the 2007-2008 American theater season. It has had international productions/translations in Brazil, Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Malta, France, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Scotland, England and Canada. Publications are by Northwestern University Press and Dramatists Play Service as well as a number of anthologies.

Currently, Heather is developing a libretto for an opera commissioned by the Annenberg Foundation and City Opera Vancouver. The opera details the life of a US Marine who served in Fallujah in 2004 and relates the haunting experiences of identity and belonging for both veterans and their families as well as Iraqis.

Heather鈥檚 recent acting credits include: The feature film Vino Veritas, director Sarah Knight; Food and Fadwa (world premiere New York Theater Workshop); In Darfur (world premiere The Public Theater, Delacourt); Palace of the End (Drama League Nomination - Epic Theater Center); Seven (Skirball Center, London鈥檚 House of Lords, Aspen Ideas Festival); The French Lieutenant鈥檚 Woman (world premiere Fulton Opera House); Over The River and Through the Woods (John Houseman); Off Broadway/National Tour of Macbeth (Lady Macbeth), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Page) and The Rivals all with The Acting Company. Regionally with the Old Globe Theater: Romeo and Juliet (director Daniel Sullivan); Othello (director Jack O鈥橞rien); As You Like It (director Stephen Wadsworth); Macbeth (director Nicky Martin).

Raffo served as 2010-2011 Artist in Residence at Vassar College, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation. She enjoys an ongoing residency in the Department of Performing Arts at Georgetown University. She has taught and performed at dozens of universities and arts centers both in the United States and abroad, engaging students about the politics and arts of Iraq and about her own experience as an Iraqi-American playwright and actress.

Raffo received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Michigan and her Master of Fine Arts in acting performance from the University of San Diego. She also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London.

Originally from Michigan, Heather currently lives in New York. Her father is from Iraq and her mother is American.