Yussef El Guindi’s star is in the ascendant. The Seattle playwright’s new comedy Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World is receiving a mainstage, world premier production at Seattle’s ACT Theatre this summer. Yussef’s career has also been gaining traction on the national scene. For playwrights in Seattle, when one of us gets full productions and national notice it is heartening for all, and most definitely cause to celebrate.
I asked Yussef a few questions when we met for coffee recently. “El Guindi” not exactly being “Smith” or “Jones,” there had to be a story there and indeed there is. Yussef was born in Egypt, moved to London at age four, and attended boarding schools in England. At 17 he enrolled at the American College in Paris for a year, then transferred to the American University in Cairo. He left Cairo for Pittsburgh where he earned an MFA in theatre from Carnegie Mellon University. In 1994, attracted by Seattle’s vibrant theatre scene and the natural beauty in this corner of North America, he moved here – but this time stayed put. Along the way he became an American citizen. His life’s journey has been more peripatetic than most (though it doesn’t seem so unusual to me, having been raised all over, courtesy of the U.S. Navy).
The sparks of success Yussef has experienced of late did not just happen. Having toiled at his writing for many years, his perseverance combined with talent is starting to pay off. He is well aware of the long odds and accompanying hardships of trying to make it as a playwright in America.
Yussef attributes part of his improving fortunes to a “career reboot” he did in the late 1990s. Until then his scripts were tackling big social and political issues, he was submitting to theatres all over the country, and he was getting that all too familiar response – silence. He decided to reconnect to the pleasure of writing that initially attracted him to the theatre. He started writing shorter, less heavy plays and focusing on his local theatre scene. And guess what? He started getting readings and the occasional production. Equally important, he found himself having fun again writing plays. Paradoxically, after he became better known and respected locally, national attention started to come his way. He’s now had productions in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. He dates his change in fortunes to that early-90s “reboot.”
The strategy of playwrights focusing on their own backyard – theatre’s equivalent of the “locavore” movement for foodies – is one that was hinted at in Outrageous Fortune, the 2010 book that documented the challenges facing playwrights in America today.
Yussef offers two suggestions for other struggling playwrights: (1) abandon a scattergun approach to submissions and research what communities and theatres might be predisposed to your work (like maybe ones in your hometown rather than 2,000 miles away); and (2) get out of your shell and build relationships; writing may be solitary but theatre is definitely a social enterprise.
It was exciting news when ACT picked up Yussef’s play for the 2011 mainstage season. If you’re near Seattle June 17 – July 17, try to see this fine new play by a real live local playwright (albeit via Cairo, London, Paris and Pittsburgh). Here’s the blurb for Yussef’s new comedy: When Musa, an Egyptian cab driver who’s been in America less than a year, falls for Sheri, a sassy American waitress, his life takes unexpected and delightfully complicated turns. This sexy, "very now" comedy is full of unabashed sweetness and goofy charm, and reminds us that we are all “immigrants” with far more connecting than separating us.
I for one can’t wait. Maybe I’ll see you there.
