On November 17, 2013, Unchained At Last presented
BOUNTY OF LACE
The reading of a play about arranged marriage
Featuring Alysia Reiner and Michelle Hurst of “Orange Is the New Black”
Written by Susan Merson • Produced by the Jewish Plays Project
Followed by a panel discussion about arranged/forced marriage in the U.S.
At The Dillon, 425 W. 53 Street, New York City
ABOUT THE PLAY
A haredi mother, an Ethiopian professor and an American expatriate struggle to help a young Israeli woman secretly pregnant by a Palestinian man – but about to enter an arranged marriage with the rabbi’s son. Bounty of Lace explores the experience of women in a war-torn region dominated by male agendas.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
David Winitsky is the artistic director of the Jewish Plays Project, a collaborator with StorahTelling and a PresenTense New York City Fellow. He has directed or assisted on Broadway, off Broadway and regionally at Papermill Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Festival and Philadelphia Theatre Company. David holds an MFA in directing from Northwestern University and a BA in mathematics from Cornell.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
- Alysia Reiner (JUDITH) is an actress and producer, a mother and a humanitarian. She currently plays Natalie “Fig” Figueroa on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, and she has appeared in numerous other TV shows, including Blue Bloods, The Sopranos, 30 Rock and Law & Order (CI and SVU). She has appeared in such films as Sideways, which won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, Kissing Jessica Stein and Primrose Lane. Alysia has appeared on stages around the world, including performances in Pentecost, An Oak Tree, which won a Special Obie Award, and Wasps In Bed. Alysia serves on the board of The Broad Collective and is involved with many charities dedicated to health, women and human rights.
- Michelle Hurst (KITZY) has had an extensive career in theatre, film and television, playing everything from judges and doctors to irate mothers, ghostly slaves and Henry James. Her film credits include Airheads, Sherrybaby and The Night We Never Met. She has performed at The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theatre, NYSF/The Public Theater, Soho Rep, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, among others. Michelle’s television credits include major roles on The Good Wife and Blue Bloods, all three Law & Order shows and Sex and the City; currently, she plays Miss Claudette Pelage on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. Michelle also does voice-over work and narration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Susan Merson (GEULA) is an actress, writer, producer and educator who is not only a cast member; she also wrote Bounty of Lace. Susan is the founder/producing artistic director of New York Theatre Intensives and a writing teacher at California State University, Fullerton and at Sacred Center New York. She has appeared in the Broadway productions of Saturday Sunday Monday and Children of a Lesser God, and she co-created and appeared in the original off-Broadway production of Vanities. The plays she has written, including Hair: A Reminiscence, have been performed in the US and Canada, and her novels and fiction work have been published in various journals and anthologies.
- Jane Aquilina (SHARON) has been writing, performing and producing cabaret and stand up for more than a decade, appearing at Caroline’s, the Duplex, Broadway Comedy Club and the Metropolitan. Jane will be a featured singer in Off Broadway’s Sleep No More’s Valentine’s Day Cabaret. She also will star at the Duplex on February 14 with her partner in crime, Miss Robusta Capp, in Dirty Little Ditties. Jane is a member of Bizarre Noir Theatre Company and Carnival Girls Productions.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
- Kavitha Rajagopalan (Moderator) is a published author and policy analyst who was the first member of her family not to enter an arranged marriage. She serves as board secretary for Unchained At Last, as a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, where she writes and lectures widely on global migration, and as a research director at a risk-consulting firm. Kavitha is the author of Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West and she is a former journalist in the US, Germany and India. She was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship and the John J. McCloy Journalism Award.
- Bushra Rehman is a poet, essayist and author. Her first novel, Corona, is a dark comedy about being South Asian in the United States; it was listed on this year’s Poets & Writers list of Best Debut Fiction. Bushra co-edited the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, which was included in Ms. Magazine’s 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time. Her writing has been featured in numerous anthologies and on BBC Radio, WNYC and KPFA and in The New York Times, India Currents, The Feminist Wire and Mizna: Prose, Poetry and Art Exploring Arab America.
- Claire R. Thomas is a staff attorney at African Services Committee, where she advocates for African immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. She directs “Projet Aimée,” ASC’s empowerment group for survivors of gender-based violence. Claire is a member of the Immigration & Nationality Law Committee of the New York City Bar and chair of the Youth and Children subcommittee, as well as an adjunct member of the African Affairs Committee and co-chair of the Gender subcommittee. Claire has presented trainings on cultural competency to students and professionals in the US and abroad and has contributed articles on women’s rights to Perspectives on Global Issues and Women for Women International’s Critical Half journal.
- Shehnaz Abdeljaber is a dedicated advocate for human rights. She serves as the outreach coordinator for the Rutgers University Center for Middle Eastern Studies, where she helps coordinate cultural and educational events involving the Arab and Muslim communities, and as the volunteer outreach coordinator for the Global Literacy Project’s reading program, recruiting Rutgers University students to read to bilingual children at daycare centers in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She also leads the Project’s backpack program, which supplies underprivileged children with school supplies. Shehnaz is currently a graduate student at University of Pennsylvania, where she is pursuing a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Arab/South Asian women’s literature and creative writing.
- Fraidy Reiss is the founder/executive director of Unchained At Last. Fraidy was 19 when her family arranged for her to marry a violent man — but with no education and no job, she was trapped. Finally, at age 27, Fraidy defied her community to become the first person in her family to go to college; she graduated from Rutgers University at age 32 as valedictorian. She reported for the Asbury Park Press, winning the Robert P. Kelly Award for outstanding young journalists, second place, before she became a private investigator. Fraidy managed to get divorced and win full custody of her children, but she knows that most women who want to leave their arranged/forced marriages are limited by finances, religious laws and cultural norms. For them, Fraidy founded Unchained At Last.
GOLD SPONSORS
- Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
- World Policy Institute
- Estanne Fawer
- Melina Spadone
- Kavitha Rajagopalan
SILVER SPONSORS
- Lisa Geevarughese
- Shehnaz Abdeljaber
- Walter Luers
SPECIAL THANK YOU
Unchained thanks the following people for making Bounty of Lace possible: Jeanne Gordon, Melina Spadone, David Winitsky, Susan Merson, Mark Berkley, Kelly Schultz and all of the sponsors, performers and panelists.