Andrea Assaf with the Arab American National Museum are one of the five winners of the 2024 Joyce Awards, which lift up collaborations between artists of color and arts and community organizations throughout the Great Lakes region.
“DRONE sits at the intersection of so many critical issues, tackling topics such as surveillance, immigration, PTSD within the veteran community, moral injury, and much more. This work offers a constellation of entry points for people to join the conversation, regardless of identity. Drone policy is not something we have the luxury of ignoring; my hope with this work is to facilitate a dialogue that will shape the future of these policies and empower the public to exercise their agency in the face of these urgent concerns.” -Andrea Assaf
Writer, director, and performer Andrea Assaf will create DRONE, an ambitious live theatre production that confronts the militarized use of drone technology, interrogating the ethics of remote-control warfare and foregrounding the human cost of war. Created in collaboration with the Arab American National Museum and developed through community-informed approaches including Story Circles and art-based dialogues, the multimedia piece will combine theatre, live music, and digital design to spark reflection and action. The project will be informed by conversations with the surrounding community of Dearborn, Michigan—home to one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the United States—as well as with local veterans and anti-war activists.
About Andrea Assaf
Andrea Assaf is a writer, director, performer, and cultural organizer. She is the founding Artistic and Executive Director of Art2Action Inc., and Co-Director of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation in partnership with Pangea World Theater. Her seminal work, Eleven Reflections on September, was commissioned by Pangea and has been featured at the National Asian American Theater Festival, La MaMa, and The Kennedy Center, among others. It was reimagined as a digital film and is now being recreated as a large-scale, city-specific, community-devised series, Eleven Reflections on the Nation, in San Antonio, San Francisco, and beyond. Andrea’s recent original works include: DRONE, commissioned by the Arab American National Museum, with additional support from Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) New Orleans, and National Performance Network (NPN), currently in development; and Outside the Circle (co-created with Dora Arreola and Samuel Valdez), among others. Andrea has also created and directed numerous community-devised works with veterans, refugees, and youth. Her most recent directorial work can be seen in The Seasoned Woman by Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson with Lubana Al Quntar, premiering in May 2024 at The Carver Center. Awards include 2024 Joyce Award; 2021 Director, Best Experimental Feature, Silk Road Film Awards Cannes, 2010 & 2015 Princess Grace Awards, and more. DRONE was also a 2019 NEFA National Theater Project. Andrea is a thought-leader in the national arts field, as a founding Board member of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA), founding Board member of the Middle Eastern & North African Theater Makers Alliance (MENATMA), and a voting member of Alternate ROOTS. She has a master’s degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting, both from NYU. For more information, visit art2action.org/artists/Andrea-Assaf.
About the Arab American National Museum
The Arab American National Museum is a touchstone that connects communities to Arab American culture and experiences. Located in Dearborn, Mich., amid one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the United States, AANM presents original exhibitions, cutting-edge art, film screenings and performances across the nation, and continually documents the history and stories of Arab Americans. AANM is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums; an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution; a founding member of the Southeast Michigan nonprofit arts and culture association, CultureSource, the Immigration and Civil Rights Network of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and the Michigan Alliance for Cultural Accessibility; a member of the National Performance Network; and a national institution of ACCESS, the most comprehensive Arab American community nonprofit in the U.S. The Museum is located at 13624 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, MI, 48126. For more information, visit arabamericanmuseum.org.
Fellow 2024 awardees include: Marcus Elliot with Detroit Parks Coalition (Detroit); Terry Guest with Chicago Children’s Theatre (Chicago); Katie Ka Vang with Theater Mu (Minneapolis-Saint Paul); and Edra Soto with The Sculpture Center (Cleveland).