Press
“All three plays are directed by Kholoud Sawaf, who gives each piece distinct treatment, ranging from stillness to dancing under the stars”.
“All three plays have been astutely directed by Kholoud Sawaf, and the works are thematically related in that they all incorporate the tone of Ridgefield, Connecticut, into their narratives.
“Director Kholoud Sawaf deserves credit for helping The Suburbs attain a sense of unity, with Ridgefield, Connecticut, being the binding theme”.
“The plays were ably directed by Kholoud Sawaf with doses of humor and pathos. Her evolving stage pictures and energetic pace kept things interesting”
“Sawaf’s direction of 10,000 Balconies was sharp, specific and jumped effortlessly between text and music, poetry and spoken language, and comedy and tragedy. The young director’s talent (as we saw previously in the T2 production of “Vietgone”) is rooted in strong visual storytelling and a sense of imagination fed by the musicality of the work and an enormous sense of theatricality she brings.”
“The new site will allow for visual art exhibitions in addition to theatrical productions. The festival has commissioned artists to dream up projects inspired by the new landscape, among them Kholoud Sawaf, a Syrian director; Melissa McGill, a visual artist based in Hudson Valley; and Madeline Sayet, the executive director of Yale University’s Indigenous Performing Arts Program and a member of the Mohegan tribe.”
— “Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival Finds First Permanent Home”, The New York Times
"Pomegranates and jasmine and grapes and trees and balconies, the Damascus I carry is the one that I hid and brought with me.”
— “‘It had to be love’: A Syrian Playwrights’s Struggle to Tell A Story in Arkansas”, NPR”,
“I am attracted to physical, musically-driven storytelling. My work often incorporates both movement and music, while simultaneously leading an audience on an emotional journey”