Crowded Fire & Golden Thread Present Sedef Ecer’s ON THE PERIPHERY
Crowded Fire begins its 22nd season with the American premiere of Sedef Ecer’s ON THE PERIPHERY in a new English translation by Evren Odcikin, directed by Erin Gilley. A co-production with Golden Thread Productions, the show runs February 23-April 4, 2020 at Potrero Stage. Ecer’s On the Periphery paints a tender portrayal of the lives of social outcasts in Istanbul’s urban slums mirroring the displacement, migration, and gentrification in the Bay Area. Tickets are on sale at https://goldenthread.org/productions/on-the-periphery/.
Set in Istanbul and Paris, Ecer’s new play focuses on the rarely told stories of migrants in Istanbul’s urban slums. Farmers Dilsha and Bilo leave their home in the countryside to make a life in the big city. Young lovers Azad and Tamar appeal to superstar Sultane’s reality TV show to realize their dream of a life in France. Roma woman, Kibele, finds home in a shack she has made with her own hands.
Translated from Turkish by Evren Odcikin, the play takes a lyrical, funny, and deeply human look at hope and home against all odds. It examines homelessness and displacement in Istanbul with an expansive global lens that brings it home to the San Francisco Bay Area where these issues are extremely palpable and relevant.
Sedef Ecer (Playwright) was born in Istanbul, where she grew up in the world of movie-making, theatre and television. She has written numerous articles or opinion pieces for national newspapers or magazines, novels, screenplays, explored new genres with transmedia stories and translated Charlotte Delbo, and Saint-Exupery’s works into Turkish. But her major work is in the field of theater, in French. Now living in Paris and writing in French, her plays are published by Les Éditions de l’Amandier, Les Éditions l’Espace d’un Instant, Lansman and l’Avant-Scène in France, and translated into Polish, Turkish, Armenian, German, Greek, and English. Ms. Ecer’s plays have been seen across Europe at venues including Metz Opera House, National Theatre Le Liberté, Théâtre du Peuple, Aalen Stadt Theater, and Théâtre National de Strasbourg. She is one of the three women writers who founded the Parlement des Écrivaines Francophones, and is entered in the 2014 Dictionnaire Universel des Créatrices (The Universal Dictionary of Women Creators Worldwide, supported by Unesco). She is represented by Zelig in France, Merlin Verlag in Germany, and Habitus in Turkey. https://www.sedefecer.com
Erin Gilley (Director) is a director and video projection designer. Recent projection design credits include: Shotgun Players’ Women Laughing Alone with Salad, Kings, and White; and Golden Thread’s Scenes from 71* Years. Other notable credits include directing and projection design for San Francisco’s immersive theatre production The Speakeasy (Boxcar Theatre), the international digital theatre production Longitude (LIFT/elastic future), and The Technology Cave in The Lily’s Revenge (Magic Theatre). Upcoming projects include projection design for Elevada at Shotgun Players, and directing the immersive haunted house Unhinged at Winchester Mystery House. Erin studied theatre as an undergraduate at Princeton University and received her MFA from Birkbeck, University of London. www.eringilley.com
Golden Thread Productions is the first American theatre company devoted to plays from or about the Middle East, defined broadly and inclusively. We produce passionate and provocative plays and are a developmental catalyst and vibrant artistic home to artists at various stages of their career. We bring the Middle East to the American stage, creating treasured cultural experiences for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
Crowded Fire Theater’s ensemble produces poetic, bold theater created by new and contemporary artists. We seek to engage our community by producing adventurous work, innovative in structure, which addresses the diverse political and social concerns of our audiences.