Sometimes Draw the Circle gets labeled a ‘trans play,’ but I don’t think it is. It’s fundamentally a story about family. A story about parents and children. Most of all, there are no bad guys in this play. There are people struggling to love in a world that is changing around them, and sometimes the struggle is the love. I will do my best to bring all of that struggle to the stage … and you are welcome to bring it to the theatre. playwright/performer Mashuq Mushtaq Deen
PlayMakers is proud to present this World Premiere production of Draw the Circle. As Deen says, after several years building this autobiographical piece in a workshop production at Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre, plus developmental readings, staged presentations, university and festival showings, “the play and the sociopolitical moment are coming into alignment.”
Deen continues, “The events of recent months, from the shootings, to the election, to violence abroad, to continued debate over North Carolina’s HB2 law have been a lot to process. I have been saddened to see so many people (of every political persuasion) assail their neighbors with headlines, eye rolls, and rationals, and be assailed in turn by others. Most of this is taking place on the vast ‘inter-webs’ where we rarely have to look a person in the eye as we do these things. I am guilty of this as well. The writer in me understands that we are trying our best to fight for the better world that we dream of, and that we are also panicking, and it is human nature that panic can make us do ugly things.
“I think one of the worst things writers can do is get preachy in their writing — you can see that stuff coming from a mile away, and nothing turns an audience off faster — but I hope you will forgive me if I take a moment to, perhaps not preach, but maybe advocate: We spend so much time telling people what’s in our heads, but what if we shared with people what was in our hearts? And there is so much that we share — isn’t this the basis of theatre, this universality of loss, fear, joy, love? If we must battle each other, let us battle with our hearts.
Mashuq Mustaq Deen
“The title for my play is taken from a poem I heard when I was visiting a Unitarian Universalist church in Virginia, and I would like to leave you with that poem.”
He drew a circle that shut me out–
Heretic, rebel, thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in!
Edwin Markham
Join us to share Deen’s funny, moving and wonderfully fearless performance as
Draw the Circle opens our new season Aug 24-28.
Click here or call 919.962.7529 for tickets.