Heather Raffo's Iraq Plays: The Things That Can't Be Said

Heather Raffo is the solo performer and writer of the Off Broadway hit, 9 Parts of Desire which details the lives of nine Iraqi women. For her creation and performance of 9 Parts and its national and international tour, Heather garnered many awards including a Lucille Lortel Award, and the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn and Marian Seldes- Garson Kanin playwriting awards, as well as Helen Hayes, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League nominations, for outstanding performance.Raffo served as 2010-2011 Artist in Residence at Vassar College, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation. She enjoys an ongoing residency in the Department of Performing Arts at Georgetown University. She has taught and performed at dozens of universities and arts centers both in the United States and internationally engaging students about the politics and arts of Iraq and about her own experience as an Iraqi-American playwright and actress.Raffo received her bachelor of arts in English from the University of Michigan and her masters of fine arts in acting performance from the University of San Diego. She also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Originally from Michigan, Heather currently lives in New York. Her father is from Iraq and her mother American.Michael Malek Najjar is an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts with a specialization/ concentration in Arab American and Middle Eastern Theatre forms at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Arab American Drama, Film and Performance, 1908 to the Present: A Critical Study and the editor of The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi and Four Arab American Plays: Works by Leila Buck, Jamil Khoury, Yussef El Guindi, and Lameece Issaq & Jacob Kader. He also co-edited Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He is currently serving on the advisory board of Arab Stages, a journal devoted to broadening international awareness andunderstanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora, and he is writing Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Creators for Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama.

• 1. Acknowledgements2. Dedication3. List of Photographs4. Foreword by Joanna Settle, Associate Arts Professor of Theatre at NYU Abu Dhabi and director of the world premieres of 9 Parts of Desire and Noura.5. Introduction: “Heather Raffo, Chronicler of the Iraqi-American Experience” by Michael Malek Najjar, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, University of Oregon6. Table of Contents7. The Plays i. 9 Parts of Desireii. Fallujahiii. NOURA 8. Afterword: Heather Raffo: “The Things That Can’t Be Said: Reflections by the Playwright” 9. Critical Essay: “Listening to Difference and the Soul of Rupture in Heather Raffo'sIraqi-American War Trilogy” by Maya Roth, Associate Professor of Performing Arts,Georgetown University 10. Annotated Timeline11. Notes and Bibliography

Raffo’s work affirms the full power of the theatrical form to take us places the news cannot and makes us look with fresh perspective.