Kunafa & Shay is a podcast produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, with co-hosts Nabra Nelson and Marina Johnson. Kunafa and Shay discusses and analyzes contemporary and historical, Middle Eastern and North African, or MENA, theater from across the region.
Kunafa & Shay highlights MENA plays and playwrights, spotlights international community-engaged work in the Arab world, and ponders the past, present, and future of MENA theatre in the United States and beyond. Theatre artist Nabra Nelson and MENA theatre scholar Marina Johnson bring their own perspectives, research, and special guests in order to start a dialogue and encourage further learning and discussion.
The name, Kunafa and Shay, invites you into the discussion in the best way we know how: with complex and delicious sweets like kunafa, and perfectly warm tea (or, in Arabic, shay!). Kunafa and Shay is a place to share experiences, ideas, and sometimes to engage with our differences. In each country in the Arab world, you’ll find Kunafa made differently. In that way, we also lean into the diversity, complexity and robust flavors of MENA theater. We bring our own perspectives, research and the special guests in order to start a dialogue and encourage further learning and discussion.
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