Three Tall Persian Women

Awni Abdi-Bahri is thrilled to be collaborating with Shakespeare & Company on her first full-length play. She is a writer and actor based in Los Angeles and New York, N.Y. Her writing credits include Three Tall Persian Women (the one act) at San Francisco Playhouse and Fareeda’s Phantasias (½ comedy pilot), a semifinalist at Sundance Episodic Lab. Acting credits include Broadway: POTUS, or Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, (Shubert Theatre); Off-Broadway: Persian Pod (Ars Nova), Bismillah (Wild Project), and The Welcoming Committee (The Lark); TV and Film: Girls on the Bus (HBO Max), Evil (Paramount+), Ahamed’s Ramadan Diary (Comedy Central), and Eradication (Tubi). Abdi-Bahri is also a co-creator with Dalia Ashurina on an exciting ½ hour comedy pilot, Understudies.

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Dalia currently serves as the Associate Director on Sweeney Todd on Broadway. Previous to ST, she served as the Resident Director of Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater. Her directing focuses on explosive theatricality and changing the narrative on Middle Eastern women. Her most recent new play development work has been seen at Wayward Artists Ensemble, SF Playhouse, Dixon Place, Access Theatre, and heard on the Parsnip Ship Radio Theatre Podcast. She is an alumnus of the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship in Directing at Arena Stage and before that, assisted at Center Theatre Group and Cornerstone Theatre. She is also an Alum of UC Irvine, Claire Trevor School of the Arts.