Rohina Malik

Biography

Rohina Malik is a Chicago-based playwright, actress, and solo performance artist of South Asian heritage, and was born and raised in London. She graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Religions, and is a certified Montessori teacher. She is the author of Unveiled, The Mecca Tales, and Yasmina’s Necklace. The Mecca Tales and Yasmina’s Necklace were both nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play. Some of the theaters at which Malik’s work has been developed or produced are The Goodman Theater, Crossroads Theater NJ, Chicago Dramatists, Next Theater, and Brava Theater. She is a Resident Playwright Emeritus at Chicago Dramatists and Artistic Associate at Voyage Theater Company in NYC. She is also a 2018 Lee Reynolds Award recipient, annually awarded to a woman active in theatre whose work has helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change. Malik is also the founder of a new Chicago-based theater company, Medina Theater Collective, which is dedicated to amplifying the voices and stories of the SWANASA community.

Career Highlight

In July 2019, Malik was commissioned by Big Bridge Theatre Consortium to be produced in 2021.

Unveiled

  • Genre: Drama
  • Breakdown:
    • 5F or 1F playing all five characters
  • Synopsis:
    • Unveiled tells the story of five Muslim women in a post-9/11 world. They each serve tea and tell stories of their own cultures, their families, and the hate crimes or racism they have suffered from Islamophobia.
  • Development/Production History:
    • Workshop, The 16th Street Theater, 2009
    • Production, Watch Tower Theater, Addison, TX, 2019
    • Production, Greater Boston Stage Company, 2018
    • Production, New Repertory Theater, Watertown, MA, 2018
    • Production, National Arts Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2016
    • Production, Voyage Theater Company, NY, NY, 2015
    • Production, Silk Road Rising, 2015
    • Production, Crossroads Theater, New Brunswick, NJ, 2012
    • Production, Brava Theater, San Francisco, CA, 2011
    • Production, Victory Gardens Theater, 2010
    • Production, Next Theater, 2010
    • Production, The 16th Street Theater, 2009
  • Photos from production:
Unveiled, 2018, New Repertory Theater
Unveiled, 2018, New Repertory Theater

Yasmina’s Necklace

  • Genre: Drama
  • Breakdown:
    • 5M, 2F
  • Synopsis:
    • Set in the present day, Abdul Samee, an Iraqi-Puerto Rican Muslim longs to shed his cultural identity and decides to change his name to Sam and marry an American woman. But when Sam’s marriage ultimately ends in divorce, he reluctantly agrees to a traditional arranged marriage and meets Yasmina, an Iraqi refugee.
  • Development/Production History:
    • Workshop, The Goodman Theater’s New Stages Festival, 2009
    • Finalist for Victory Gardens Ignition Festival, 2010
    • Finalist for the Aurora Theater’s 2015 Global Age Project, Bay Area
    • Production, The 16th Street Theater, 2016
    • Production, Mustard Seed Theater, St. Louis, MO, 2017
    • Production, The Goodman Theatre, Chicago, 2017 
    • Production, Premiere Stages, NJ, 2019
  • Photos from production:
Yasmina’s Necklace, 2019, Premiere Stages NJ
Yasmina’s Necklace, 2019, Premiere Stages NJ
Yasmina’s Necklace, 2017, The Goodman Theater
Yasmina’s Necklace, 2017, The Goodman Theater
  • Plays
    • Unveiled (2009)
    • The Mecca Tales (2015)
    • Yasmina’s Necklace (2016)

Reflection on Contribution to Anti-Racist Theatre

Rohina Malik’s work contributes to anti-racist theater through its authentic representations of the Muslim-American experience. Malik employs a number of themes and techniques to create a theatrical world that expands our cultural understanding. For example, in Unveiled, Rohina Malik directly addresses hate crimes and racism that Pakistani-Indian-American women face in a post-9/11 world. Malik provides us with the stories and inner thoughts of five Muslim women, who share the horrific traumas they have suffered as a result of Islamophobia. Malik seeks to quite literally “unveil” these women to us and show their humanity. Further, in Yasmina’s Necklace, the characters of Sam and Yasmina learn to see commonalities in one another and develop a mutual respect. Malik uses these two characters to illuminate the Iraqi-American experience and directly dismantle the horrible anti-Muslim bias that has persisted in the United States. Overall, the stories Malik tells through her plays are heart-wrenching and provocative, and invite audiences to look within themselves to see how they might dismantle their own prejudices to make the world more welcoming, equal and inclusive.

Compiled by Quinn Butler, Film, Television, and Theater, 2021