Sharifa Yazmeen

Sharifa Yazmeen
Born
Saudi Arabia
EducationBrown University
OccupationsTheatre director; playwright
Websitewww.sharifayazmeen.com

Sharifa Yazmeen is an Egyptian-American playwright and theatre director. Two of her plays have been featured in The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.

Early life

Yazmeen was born in Saudi Arabia; her father is Egyptian and her mother is a White American.[1] She grew up in North and South Carolina as a practicing Muslim.[1]

Career

She has an MFA in directing from Brown University.[2]

In 2021, Yazmeen was the inaugural winner of the Barbara Whitman Award, which recognizes "a female, trans, or nonbinary early-career director who has demonstrated a unique vision in their work".[3] Her 2023 direction of Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar was praised as using choices that created an "impending doom, horror movie-style" for the production.[4] In 2024 she was one of two inaugural winners (with Violeta Picayo) of the Abe Burrows Award for Assistant Directors.[5]

The University of Kansas Theatre produced Yazmeen's play The Devils Between Us in 2021; a professor there called the play "an engaging and transformative piece of storytelling".[6] It is one of eight plays featured in the 2021 volume The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.[7] In the play, a trans Arab-American woman returns to her home town due to the death of her father.[8] The introduction in Methuen's volume says the work "pushes back against homonationalist rhetoric that vilifies Muslims, de-exoticizing Egyptian heritage".[1] They place it as one of the plays written by authors from the South that deal with race and womanhood.[1][7]

An online reading of her play Close to Home was presented as part of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in San Francisco in 2022.[9] The play follows three strangers: a transfeminine teenager, a builder and a Muslim immigrant.[9] It premiered at Pillsbury House + Theatre in 2025.[10] The play is included in the second volume of The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.[11] She was awarded a Jerome Fellowship by the Playwrights' Center (2025–2027).[12]

Personal life

Yazmeen is a transgender woman.[12]

Selected works

Plays

Directing credits

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Mikhaiel, Yasmin Zacaria, and Ali-Reza Mirsajadi. "'Challenging Every Memory': Manifesting Futurity in The Devils Between Us", The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays (2021), pp. 219, 222 and 223.
  2. ↑ "Sharifa Yazmeen". www.wittenberg.edu. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  3. ↑ "Sharifa Yasmin Awarded SDCF's Inaugural Barbara Whitman Award". American Theatre. April 28, 2021. Archived from the original on December 7, 2025. Retrieved January 20, 2026.
  4. 1 2 Warner, David (June 7, 2023). "Ayad Akhtar's Haunting Disgraced at American Stage". The Gabber Newspaper. Archived from the original on June 24, 2024. Retrieved January 20, 2026.
  5. ↑ "Violeta Picayo and Sharifa Essa Yasmin Receive SDCF's Inaugural Abe Burrows Award for Assistant Directors". Playbill. Archived from the original on November 18, 2025. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  6. ↑ "KU Theatre's fall finale centers trans woman, 'disrupts' idea of classic American play". The Lawrence Times. December 1, 2021. Archived from the original on August 22, 2025. Retrieved January 20, 2026.
  7. 1 2 Keyes, Leanna; Mantoan, Lindsey; Schiller, Angela Farr, eds. (2021). The Methuen Drama book of trans plays. London: Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-1-350-17923-3.
  8. ↑ Rowen, Bess (September 1, 2023). "The Trans Theatre Tipping Point". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 45 (3): 117–121. doi:10.1162/pajj_r_00688. ISSN 1520-281X.
  9. 1 2 "LGBTQ Voices Spotlighted in 2022 Bay Area Playwrights Festival". San Francisco Bay Times. July 28, 2022. Archived from the original on January 24, 2025. Retrieved January 20, 2026.
  10. ↑ "Close to Home". Pillsbury House and Theatre. Archived from the original on January 21, 2026. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  11. ↑ Keyes, Leanna; Mantoan, Lindsey; Schiller, Angela Farr (August 21, 2025). The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Volume 2. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-45810-9.
  12. 1 2 Schafer, Teri (April 15, 2025). "Announcing our 2025–27 Jerome & Many Voices Fellows". Playwrights' Center. Archived from the original on April 16, 2025. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  13. ↑ "The Devils Between Us". New Play Exchange. Archived from the original on December 3, 2024. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  14. ↑ "Close to Home". New Play Exchange. Archived from the original on March 24, 2025. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Bone by Bone". New Play Exchange. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  16. ↑ "Lilith's Tears". New Play Exchange. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  17. ↑ Hertvik, Nicole (July 18, 2022). "'Babel' by Jacqueline Goldfinger at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival". DC Theater Arts. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2026.
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