Dear Friend,

I want to share an incredible opportunity with you. On Sunday at 5 PM, Arab American playwright, author, and actor Heather Raffo's "Nine Parts of Desire" will broadcast on PBS WETA. I cannot say enough good things about this work of art and what having it broadcast on PBS means for our community. If you haven't seen or heard about this extraordinary one-woman play before, I've included information for you below. If you have seen the play, you know it's worth watching on Sunday.

I know where I will be on Sunday at 5 PM. I hope you will be there too.

In solidarity,

Jim




An Iraqi American grieves her father’s death by bringing stories of Iraqi women to life

in the film NINE PARTS airing this week on PBS WETA

WETA PBS: Sunday, March 23rd at 5pm

WETA Metro: Thursday, March 20th at 10p and Sunday March 23rd at 2pm

Free livestream via PBS.org [[link removed]] , the PBS App, and WETA.org [[link removed]] ., YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and Local Now.

One woman. Nine stories.

Torn by her father’s death and a divided nation, an Iraqi American woman attempts to grieve at the site of the oldest Iraqi Church in North America. What starts in isolation becomes communal as Iraqi women—ordinary and extraordinary—come to and through her with their personal stories of love and resilience.



“An example of how art can remake the world”
—The New Yorker

“Powerful, Impassioned, Vivid, Memorable”
—The New York Times

“Persuasive, precisely because it is beautiful”
—The Wall Street Journal

Based on the internationally acclaimed solo show, NINE PARTS revisits a groundbreaking play for the screen and for our current times. Newly set in Michigan at the height of the pandemic, NINE PARTS is a first-of-its-kind bridge between the Midwest and the Middle East, offering audiences a unique celebration of the Iraqi female experience and an explicit warning: the divisions Iraq endured are not unique, Iraq is a bellwether for America now. Directed by Mike Mosallam, produced by Nilou Safinya, and airing nationally on PBS in 2025

Join our growing mosaic of stories and find out about future air dates @NinePartsFilm

LEARN MORE:

Watch a PBS Newshour Feature here:

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Nearly 20 years ago Heather Raffo’s play, Nine Parts of Desire, premiered to widespread acclaim in London and Off Broadway, later becoming a global theatrical phenomenon. Championed by The New Yorker as “an example of how art can remake the world”, it became the first theatrical commercial success nationally and internationally by an Arab American playwright. It initially premiered in the U.K. in 2003, where critics hailed it as one of the five best plays in London’s Off West End theater season. Later, it ran Off Broadway for nine sold out months and was a critic’s pick (of The New York Times, Time Out, and Village Voice) for over 24 weeks in a row. Since 2005, Nine Parts of Desire has been produced in nearly every theater market in the U.S. and was one of the top five most produced plays of the 2007–2008 American Theater season with international productions in over a dozen countries, some being performed to this day. Now studied in universities across the nation, Nine Parts of Desire helped forge a whole new genre of Arab American theater and continues to impact new generations globally, offering audiences not only a deeper understanding of their relationship to the Middle East but to each other.

Arab American Institute Foundation
1600 K Street, NW, Suite 601
Washington, DC 20006
United States
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