Written & Performed by Cynthia Shaw
Directed by Peter Michael Marino
Cynthia Shaw was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado, and moved to NY to pursue a career as a classical pianist and attend the Manhattan School of Music. She soon moved on to musical directing and finally to acting in film and theatre. Her recent film work has been presented at Cannes Festival Corner, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, The Soho International Film Festival, to name a few. Her episode of the web series, “Brooklyn is in Love” won two awards at the LA Webfest.
Stage work includes NY theaters: Theatre Row, The Medicine Show Theatre, The Barrow Group, Gloria Maddox Theatre, The Wild Project, and The Secret Theater.
As a singer she’s sung back-up vocals for both Paul McCartney at Carnegie Hall and Bjrk at Riverside Church. As a pianist, she’s musical directed over 30 shows, including 15 years with the New York Christmas Revels at Symphony Space, Town Hall and on NPR.
In PALESTINE, Najla Said provides a unique passage into one of the most volatile and historic corners of the earth. With compassion, humor, and honesty she makes a case for Palestinian and Arab points of view in ways that truly allow them to be heard. Raised in privilege on New York City’s Upper West Side (where many of her best friends were Jewish) Najla was forced as a teenager to take a family trip to the Middle East to visit her father’s homeland. Anorexic and depressed, obsessed with boys and the beach, her experiences nevertheless kindled a life-long exploration of what it means to be both Arab and American. Najla takes audiences on a whirlwind tour from kissing Jewish boys to “the stench of Gaza,” through two wars, the horrors of 9/11, encounters with world figures including Yasser Arafat, and life with her beloved father. Edward Said was a professor at Columbia University and, until his death in 2003, a worldwide spokesman for Palestine and the Middle East.
