To co-edit this issue’s stories about theatre and military veterans, we looked to NYC-based playwright and former Marine Maurice Decaul, who as TCG’s artist-in-residence works with the Blue Star Theatres program and the Veterans and Theatre Institute. “In terms of theatre and war, much has already been accomplished, but there are angles still waiting to be explored,” says Decaul, who leads the correspondence between scribes David Rabe and Quiara Alegría Hudes. Decaul adds, “Stories which decenter the war narrative from the battlefield to the kitchen table are of particular interest, especially during these current long wars, in which the same families have been asked to send loved ones to war repeatedly.”
Beirut-based actor/writer/educator Milia Ayache, who pens this issue’s story on performing with Syrian refugees, did her MFA at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute. That’s why, she says, “I often feel like this strange triangulated person in the theatre world, always having to defend someone, whether it’s the Americans, Arabs, or Russians.” Whenever she returns to the U.S. she finds that “theatre is for theatre folk and not for everyone and for all communities.” By contrast, she notes, referring to the project in her home city, “I couldn’t believe how many people came to that performance of Ti-Jean and His Brothers in the park that day. It was truly overwhelming and beautiful.”
