'Domestic Crusaders' comes to Allendale

A staged reading of the play “The Domestic Crusaders,” with playwright Wajahat Ali, will be held Friday, February 10, at 7 p.m. in the Cook-DeWitt Center, Allendale Campus.

“The Domestic Crusaders” focuses on the day in the life of a modern multi-generational Muslim Pakistani American family who convene to celebrate the 21st birthday of the youngest child. Against the backdrop of 9/11, tensions rise among the six eclectic family members as each “crusader” struggles to assert their opinions while attempting to maintain the unifying thread of family.

The play premiered in 2005 at the Thrust Stage of the Berkeley Repertory Theater and San Jose University Theater. In 2009, it premiered Off-Broadway in New York at the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and broke their box office records during its historic 5 week run. This is the first full-length play by Ali, a playwright/attorney/new media journalist who is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ali is a frequent consultant on Islam and Muslims, post 9-11 Muslim American identity and politics, multicultural art and activism, and New Media Journalism. His essays and interviews on contemporary affairs, politics, the media, popular culture and religion frequently appear in the Washington Post, Salon, Slate and elsewhere. He was honored as an An Influential Muslim American Artist by the State Department and also received the 2011 Otto Award for Political Theatre.

The performance at Grand Valley is open to the public with free admission. It is made possible through co-sponsorship by Grand Valley’s School of Communications and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, along with the Migrations of Islam project at Michigan State University, which supports examination of Muslim-American popular culture through a series of performances by Muslim artists. The Migrations project is supported by the Muslim Studies Program and the Asian Studies Center at MSU, which were awarded a grant from the Social Science Research Council. The event is in conjunction with the 2012 year of Interfaith Understanding events at Grand Valley.

Listen to Wajahat Ali and Brian Bowe on the WGVU program Common Threads.

For more information, contact Brian Bowe at [email protected].