Session Description
This panel discussion from the 2026 National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation, moderated by Meena Natarajan, explores the role of theatre artists in times of war, occupation, and state-sanctioned violence, in multiple contexts and locations around the globe, from Minneapolis to Palestine.
Featuring theatre directors and ensemble leaders with personal and artistic roots in Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine, India, the Twin Cities and more, this conversation investigates how theatres and artists are responding, connecting with local and international justice movements, and envisioning the future of our collective work in the context of political crisis.
Panelist Bios
Sandy Agustin hails from this complex place called mni sota makoce. She is the first generation of an Ilocano immigrant who grew up dancing hula, tinikling, to Motown, disco, modern and more recently Argentine tango. She moved her way through arts administration and nonprofit arts over 30+ years and has choreographed, performed and taught via Children’s Theater Company, Stepping Stone, Theater Mu, Augsburg College, the U of MN, Pangea World Theater, Full Circle Theater, Jungle Theater, etc., etc. Sandy is proud of Minnesotans and the creative humans who have stood up to the brutality of the “border patrol” in this Northern tundra. Fkice.
Iman Aoun is an award-winning actress who works in theatre, TV series, and films. She started her acting career with El-Hakawati Theatre Company in Jerusalem in 1984, and co-founded ASHTAR Theatre in 1991. Ms. Aoun has received various notifications for her work from different countries and international organizations and festivals. In 2020, she was a finalist for the Gilder/Coigney Award, NYC. She has been running the ASHTAR International Youth Theatre Festival since 2012, has written and published several articles on the subject of theatre in Palestine, and has co-written two books on theatre training. A panelist in a number of international conferences and World Summits and part of UNESCO Arts-Lab, Ms. Aoun is an internationally recognized theatre trainer specialized in Theatre of the Oppressed. She is the initiator of various international projects, most notably: One Hundred Artists for Palestine in 2003 with IETM; The Gaza Monologues in 2010, 2023; The Syrian Monologues in 2015; and Letters to Gaza in 2024.
Andrea Assaf is an award-winning playwright, director, performer, and cultural organizer. She’s the founding Artistic & Executive Director of Art2Action, and Co-Director of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation (an Art2Action and Pangea World Theater partnership). Her work has been featured at the Arab American National Museum, Detroit Public Theatre, BRAVA Theatre Center with Golden Thread Productions, Carver Community Cultural Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) at CAATA’s National Asian American Theatre Festival, La MaMa, The Apollo, The Kennedy Center, Pangea World Theater, and more. Her work has also toured internationally, to the 2025 Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) in Cairo, as well as in Mexico, Canada, Nicaragua, Poland, and more. Awards and recognitions include: 2025 Creative Impact Award, 2025 Venturous Playwright finalist, 2024 Joyce Award, 2021 Silk Road Film Awards Cannes (Best Experimental Feature), 2020 Pushcart Prize nomination, 2019 NEFA National Theatre Project, 2019 & 2011 NPN Creation Fund commissions, 2017 Freedom Plow Award finalist (Poetry & Activism), 2010 Princess Grace Award/Gant Gaither Theater Honor (Directing), and more. Andrea has a Master’s degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting, both from NYU. She serves on the Board of the MENA Theatre Makers Alliance, the Executive Committee of Alternate ROOTS, and was a founding Board member of the Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists (CAATA). For more information, visit Art2Action.
Micha Espinosa is an internationally recognized teaching artist, scholar, director, and coach whose work bridges acting, voice, and embodied practice. She is the award-winning editor of Monologues for Latino Actors and co-editor of Scenes for Latinx Actors and Latinx Actor Training—titles honored by the International Latino Book Awards and widely adopted. Her teaching spans the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, with a sustained focus on voice and somatic practice. Over the past decade, her research has been grounded in activism, feminist praxis, border consciousness, and social and climate justice. A leading voice and text coach in the American theatre, Espinosa currently serves as Artistic Director of the Fitzmaurice Institute, where she advances voice- and liberation-based practices globally. She leads a network of more than 350 teachers across six continents and has overseen the preparation of hundreds of designated teachers worldwide. Professor Emerita of Voice and Acting at Arizona State University, she is now Professor of Acting and Directing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her honors include the Victoria Foundation Award for Outstanding Literary and Arts Achievement and national recognition through the United States National Theatre Conference and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.
Chuck Mike is an award winning, internationally acclaimed theatre director, playmaker, educator and social activist. Some of his main-stage productions have appeared on the stages of The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., The Royal Court Theatre in London, The Edinburgh Festival and National Theatre of Nigeria. Some highlights include: Fences, Raisin in the Sun, Macbutu (after Macbeth), Sense of Belonging and Zhe: (Noun) Undefined (both authored by him), Things Fall Apart (World Tour), Yerma, Women of Owu (after Trojan Woman), Tegonni (after Antigone), The Meeting, Fairview and Blues for Mister Charlie. He enjoys devising original work and has initiated performances for social change in rural and urban communities across Africa, Europe, Canada and America. As artist-in-residence/ workshop leader and visiting professor, some spaces of work have been the University of Leeds, Oxford University, University of Toronto, New York University, University of lfe (Nigeria), London’s Royal National Theatre Studio and the Windybrow Theatre of Johannesburg. Founding Artistic Director for Collective Artistes (Nigeria and UK) and The Performance Studio Workshop of Nigeria, Chuck Mike has been the recipient of grants from International Telephone and Telegraph/Fulbright, MacArthur and Ford Foundations and the American Cultural Specialist program. Co-curator, with Carlyle Brown, for the Cultural Diaspora program, a residency for playwrights of African descent in Cassis, France he is Professor Emeritus of Theatre at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
Meena Natarajan (Moderator) is a playwright and director and the Artistic and Executive Director of Pangea World Theater, an international ensemble space that creates at the intersection of art, equity and social justice. Meena has co-curated and designed many of Pangea World Theater’s professional and community-based programs. She has written at least ten full-length works for Pangea, ranging from adaptations of poetry and mythology to original works dealing with war, spirituality, personal and collective memory. Her play, Etchings in the Sand, co-created with dancer Ananya Chattterjea has been published by Routledge in a volume called Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: The Second Edition. Meena leads ensemble-based processes in Pangea that lead to works produced for the stage. She has also directed and dramaturged several original theater and performance art pieces. She is currently on the board of the National Performance Network, Longfellow Rising, and the Loft. She recently collaborated with artist Chrissie Orr to create a project called Seed Syllables facilitating dialogues with 32 community artists and cultural activists across the U.S. and Canada to offer a composite portrait of life in the quadruple pandemic of virus, racial violence, economic meltdown, and climate crisis. Seed Syllables premiered as an incantatory participatory performance in June 2023 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
