I resigned from New Dramatists 2 years early. My open letter explains why.
DRAW THE CIRCLE
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award
THE BETTERMENT SOCIETY
FLOOD
PLAYS
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DRAW THE CIRCLE
(LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER)
THE
SHAKING
EARTH
THE SHAKING EARTH
Covid-Postponed Production, National Queer Theater, NYC, June 2020
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First Runner-Up, India's 2020 Sulthan Padamsee Playwriting Prize
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First Runner-up, Woodward International Playwriting Prize
The betterment society
THE BETTERMENT SOCIETY
Published in the Methuen Books Anthology of Trans Plays
IN THE PRESS
“
DRAW THE CIRCLE is a singular theatrical experience. It concludes overwhelmingly, rendering transgender issues unignorable in today's divisive political climate.
BARBARA JOHNSON, BROADWAY WORLD
“
Trans playwrights are still emerging, which puts Deen’s show in the vanguard here ... DRAW THE CIRCLE does not sugarcoat his despair or incidents of violence, yet it rather amazingly reaches back to retrieve people who easily could have been cut out for life. The wrathful moment confronting us with the ongoing violence against trans people does not define the tone of this personable, entirely approachable show. Inarguably, though, it’s that flicker of wrath that gives the piece its purpose.
“
We watch as Deen examines himself from afar, trapped in a moment of fear and vulnerability — a moment of self-exposure so raw and naked it took me aback. At a time when the words queer, trans, and Muslim automatically elicit a series of assumptions, racist stereotypes, and preordained narratives, Deen has managed to pull off a feat that is expansive and nuanced, one that encompasses many (sometimes contravening) truths and realities without sacrificing a sense of emotional wholeness and generosity.
NELSON PRESSLEY, WASHINGTON POST
AVIVA STAHL, THE VILLAGE VOICE
BIO
aesthetic
Rumi has a poem that goes: "The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings." ... I am particularly interested in the heroic journeys of the heart.
very brief bio
A PWC Core Writer and winner of the Lambda Literary Award, he is also a first runner-up for both India's Sulthan Padamsee Playwriting Prize and the Woodward International Playwriting Prize. He has been supported with residencies at MacDowell, Bogliasco, Wurlitzer, Blue Mountain Center, New Harmony and others. He is an alum of New Dramatists. He is represented by the Gurman Agency.