We begin our season with an exciting partnership with Golden Thread Productions for A Festival of Palestinian Art, uplifting Palestinian voices and stories in theater, film, and stand-up comedy. This unique Festival will take place April 9 – 19, 2026, at San Francisco’s Potrero Stage. It features AMREEKA 2026: The Comedy Show, curated by Wafaa Bilal, as well as a developmental workshop and reading of A Country Made of Salt by Denmo Ibrahim, and a filmed version of Alaa Shehada’s acclaimed solo show The Horse of Jenin, with additional programming and events to be announced.
Renowned Iraqi artist and Golden Thread’s 2023 Artist-in-Residence Wafaa Bilal will curate a special edition of AMREEKA: The Comedy Show. Featuring a dynamic lineup of Palestinian comedians, AMREEKA 2026 will center Palestinian voices and use comedy as a space for connection, creative resistance, and collective joy. Denmo Ibrahim’s A Country Made of Salt is a story about stories — how we inherit them, how we carry them, and how we learn to tell our own. As Rabia gathers voices from Arab America, her archive begins to speak, blurring memory and myth into ritual, reckoning, and return. The Horse of Jenin, written and performed by award-winning Palestinian actor/writer Alaa Shehada, traces a giant horse sculpture built from the wreckage of Jenin in 2002, a symbol of freedom later removed by Israeli forces in 2023. Combining storytelling, mask, and stand-up comedy, Shehada constructs a moving narrative from his fragmented memories as an ode to the power of imagination and the resilience it brings.
Performance Info
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Accessibility
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Learn more about CFT’s Accessibility Programming here! www.CrowdedFire.org/accessibility
Engagement Events
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Artist Bios
Wafaa Bilal (he/him) is an Iraqi-born artist and is known internationally for his on-line performative and interactive works provoking dialogue about international and interpersonal politics. Bilal’s work explores tensions between the cultural spaces he occupies —his home in the comfort zone of the U.S. and his consciousness in the conflict zone in Iraq. For his 2007 installation, Domestic Tension, Bilal spent a month in FlatFile Galleries where people could shoot him via a remote-access paintball gun. The Chicago Tribune called it one of the sharpest works of political art to be seen in a long time”—naming him 2008 Artist of the Year. That year, City Lights published Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun about Bilal’s life and Domestic Tension. Using his own body as a medium, Bilal continued to challenge the public’s comfort zone with projects like 3rdi and and Counting… Bilal’s work, Canto III, was included as part of the Iranian pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Bilal’s current work 168:01 brings awareness to cultural destruction and promotes the collective healing process through education and audience participation. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; amongst others. He holds a BFA from the University of New Mexico, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was conferred an honorary PhD from DePauw University. Bilal is currently an Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Denmo Ibrahim (she/her) is an award-winning American playwright, actor, and theatre maker of Egyptian descent. Her plays include Arab Spring (Finalist: O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Princess Grace Award, Rainin Fellowship), BABA (Winner: ‘Best Original Script’, Theatre Bay Area, Winner: ‘Best New Play’, ‘Best Solo Show,’ San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award), A Country Made of Salt (Winner: Legacy Playwrights Award, Harvard University) and Naguib Mahfuz Was Stabbed in the Neck and Almost Died (Finalist: Sundance Theatre Lab). Her work has been produced and developed by Audible, Round House Theatre, Williamston Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Capital Stage, Noor Theatre, The Civilians R&D Series, Amphibian Stage, Alter Theatre, Shotgun Players, Golden Thread, and Crowded Fire. Regional acting credits include Berkeley Repertory, The Old Globe, Seattle Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, and California Shakespeare Theatre. Her audio-immersive children’s book Zaynab’s Night of Destiny toured 25 public schools in Kentucky and was supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts. Denmo holds an MFA in Lecoq-based Actor-Created Physical Theater (Naropa University) and a BFA in Acting (Boston University). denmoibrahim.com and zaynabbooks.com
Denmo is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, Dramatists Guild, and New Play Exchange. She is the founder of five companies: Earthbody, a wellness center in San Francisco named “Top 25 Spas to Watch” by Day Spa Magazine; Omcali Sacred Skincare, an organic plant-based line of skincare rituals; The People’s Meditation, an international meditation community offering free daily practice online; and Mugwumpin, a movement-based ensemble for new work. She serves as the Chair of MENATMA (Middle Eastern Theatre Makers Alliance). Denmo holds an MFA in Lecoq-based Actor Created Physical Theater from Naropa University and a BFA in Acting from Boston University.
Alaa Shehada (he/him) is a theatre maker, actor, and comedian. A graduate of The Freedom Theatre Acting School in Jenin Refugee Camp, a company nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in February 2024, he specializes in physical comedy, stand-up comedy, and mask work.
As a co-founder of The Palestine Comedy Club, Alaa has developed a platform for Palestinian comedians to share their stories, humor, and culture. Shehada is a Clown Doctor with Red Noses International in the West Bank, leads theatre workshops for women and children in and outside of Palestine, as well as being a member of Troupe Courage in Amsterdam as a mask actor. His new comedy solo show, The Horse of Jenin, is a moving and humorous look at his upbringing in Jenin.
He has performed in the USA, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Turkey, and the UK. He’s worked with the directors Amir Nizar Zubi, Di Trevis, and Katrien Van Beurden, and recently performed with comedian Bassem Youssef and held a TEDx London talk with comedian Nish Kumar.
CAST
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CREATIVE TEAM
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