PICT launches 30th Anniversary Season with Rolling World Premiere Refugee Rhapsody

 

Pittsburgh International Classic Theatre (PICT) is honored to be selected,

alongside Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), Shepherdstown West Virginia, and the Sound Theatre Company, Seattle Washington, for the national

Rolling World Premiere of Refugee Rhapsody by Yussef El Guindi.

 

Refugee Rhapsody, a new play by award-winning playwright Yussef El Guindi, is the 2025 recipient of the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Citation of Excellence.*

 

Refugee Rhapsody

Rolling World Premiere

By Yussef El Guindi

October 9 - 25, 2026

Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie

Directed by Elizabeth Elias Huffman

 

Cast:

Fouad – Hari Bhaskar  

Sakinah – Milia Ayache

Jenny – Dominique Dobson Briggs

Emily – Erika Krenn

Richard/Waleed – Dionysius Akeem

 

About the play:

“Because it’s a given love will hurt you somewhere down the line. It’s a question of when, who, and how much.” – Sakinah, Refugee Rhapsody

 

A chance encounter between Emily, a wealthy socialite heiress, and a young Arab-American couple, Sakinah and Fouad – children of refugees now working at Goodwill – unfolds into a darkly comic and unsettling exploration of race, class, and privilege in contemporary America.  As their lives intersect, tensions escalate, culminating in a violent crime driven by jealousy and desire. This complex play is full of surprises with a wicked humor and a bit of magic added in for fun. In the aftermath, Sakinah undergoes a psychological evaluation conducted by a pregnant mental health professional working for the defense, whose own marriage is strained by her husband’s objections to her involvement in the high-profile case. As the investigation deepens, questions of culpability and motive take center stage.  As the truth unravels one question remains: Why?

 

About the playwright:

Born in Egypt, raised in London and now based in Seattle, Yussef El Guindi’s work frequently examines the collision of ethnicities, cultures and politics that face Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans. His most recent productions:  Hotter Than Egypt at Marin Theatre Company, ACT in Seattle, and at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and People of the Book, staged at ACT, and at Urban Stages (NYC). Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama has published The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi; and Broadway Play Publishing Inc. and Dramatists Play Service have published several of his other plays. He is the recipient of several honors, including the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Citation of Excellence Award, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, Colorado’s Henry Award, American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Playwrighting Award, Seattle’s The Stranger’s Genius Award, L.A. Weekly’s Excellence in Playwriting Award, Seattle’s Gregory Award and the Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award in 2023, he was selected by the Royal Society of Literature as an International Writer.

 

Mr. El Guindi received his BA degree from the American University in Cairo, and his MFA degree from Carnegie Mellon University.