{"id":3749,"date":"2014-05-02T18:39:20","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T18:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/?p=3749"},"modified":"2014-05-28T22:40:31","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T22:40:31","slug":"full-court-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/full-court-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Full-Court Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Full-Court Press
\n<\/strong><\/h1>\n

First-time-playwright Amir Abdullah discusses Islam, basketball and friendship in his\u00a0Pray to Ball<\/em> at the Skylight Theatre<\/h2>\n

By Deborah Klugman
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Ed Krieger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amir Abdullah\u2019s <\/i>first play, <\/i>Pray to Ball, opened last weekend at the Skylight Theatre. A writer and actor, Abdullah grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, earning his BFA from the University of Miami and his MFA in acting from Penn State University. Following graduate school, he arrived in L.A. in 2010. The play deals with college sports and religion, and pivots on the lifelong bond between two college basketball players and what happens to their friendship when matters of faith come between them. It also spotlights hypocrisy and prejudice, and the conflicts and trials faced by American Muslims today. Abdullah also performs in the play. <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The drama was developed through Skylight\u2019s Theatre\u2019s INKubator program for new works, under the aegis of the company\u2019s artistic director, Gary Grossman. <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

STAGE RAW: <\/i><\/b>Tell me about the story and the characters.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rickie<\/a>
Rickie Peete and Amir Abdullah in Pray to Ball<\/em> (Photo by Ed Krieger)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AMIR ABDULLAH: <\/b>It\u2019s about two superstars, college basketball players.\u00a0 The main character is an incoming freshman named Hakeem.\u00a0 The antagonist\u2019s name is Lou.\u00a0 He\u2019s a sophomore.\u00a0 He\u2019s been there one year and has been waiting for his buddy to come.\u00a0 These two guys that have a strong bond that goes beyond the court, that goes beyond what we see.\u00a0 They are planning to play together [in college sports] for one year and then go to the NBA, be millionaires, have a wonderful time.\u00a0 It\u2019s been their plan since high school. But plans don\u2019t always work out the way you want them to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SR:\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>Is Hakeem a Muslim?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

AA:<\/strong> No, not at the beginning. Hakeem\u2019s mother dies and he\u2019s thrown for a loop.\u00a0 He\u2019s searching for something to grasp onto.\u00a0 And he\u2019s drawn to Islam.\u00a0 Eventually he gets more into it and that causes problems with Lou.\u00a0 It\u2019s a complete turnaround from everything they planned and had wanted to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So the main conflict is with Lou over his conversion to Islam?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not entirely.\u00a0 There are a lot of things he goes through once he\u2019s converted to Islam.\u00a0 He starts to see cracks in the armor of the followers of the religion.\u00a0 He sees a lot of hypocrisy.\u00a0 And so he has to decide whether he\u2019s going to stick with it or go back to his old life. It\u2019s a crisis that involves trying to find something that he can hold onto and believe in \u2013 but seeing that it may not be right.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s something that everyone at some point in their life deals with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What drew you to this arena?\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Number one, I\u2019m a big fan of sports.\u00a0 I\u2019m interested in the culture that surrounds college athletes, the kind of day-to-day work these guys have to put in and their team dynamic.\u00a0 And I\u2019m interested in the way they are perceived by the fans. These kids are 18. And you have 45-, 55-, 60-year-old-men following their every movement.\u00a0 But these kids are not necessarily looked at as human beings. They are looked at as a number on the back of a jersey.\u00a0 [The fans] don\u2019t really care about the kid. All they care about is the performance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That was the spark. And then I wanted to explore the religious angle, offer some insight. We see what goes on with Muslims on TV, but how many people have actually talked to a Muslim or attended a service. So for me it became: How can I merge those two?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Were you ever a ball player?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, I was a theater major in school. But a friend of mine who played on the team at the University of Miami, Cyrus McGowan, was willing to open up to me. He was instrumental in hammering out the finer details of being a basketball player at a big university.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You said that you wanted to give people some insight into the Muslim experience but you also said Hakeem had some negative experiences with some of the other folks within his religious circle. Do you think people might take away something negative?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No.\u00a0 I think people will see a complex relationship, a complex view of religion.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want this to be a passion piece. I don\u2019t want to damn it either. There\u2019s a gray area.\u00a0 Every religion, every ideology, every political party has its own messy things that are part of it.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not doing my job as a storyteller if I don\u2019t show the full picture. Not just the view on something like 24<\/i> <\/b>where every Muslim is a terrorist.\u00a0 And not every Muslim is squeaky clean.\u00a0 You gotta show what\u2019s in the middle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Writing a play is a difficult and ambitious undertaking. What made you decide to attempt it?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I was in graduate school at Penn State, I had some very influential professors. We were studying acting but they also pushed us to do something beyond that. They always told me, you have to write.\u00a0 You have a story to tell.\u00a0 That thing just resonated with me. And so I wrote from what I knew. I know Miami. I know Florida pretty well. I know sports. I know Islam.\u00a0 So in some ways it was natural to do this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019ve published a brief writer\u2019s commentary about the play on Skylight Theatre\u2019s website.\u00a0 It indicates that you feel that the voice of the Muslim-American artist doesn\u2019t get enough expression in our community.\u00a0 Am I correct?<\/i><\/p>\n

Yes.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about artistic expression as it relates to dealing in everyday life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no Muslim-American artistic tradition?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Amir<\/a>
Amir Abdullah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are pushed away from it. A lot of American Muslims are pushed into careers like doctors, lawyers The goal is to support a family. And to support a family, you want to be in something with a high success rate That\u2019s great. But\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t that cross-cultural? I experienced the same thing in my tradition, which is Jewish.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the difference is \u2013 if I attend a Seder, we\u2019re singing songs, we\u2019re story-telling. That\u2019s intrinsic in the belief. The Holy Koran is very melodic, \u00a0but an exploration of what\u2019s going on in everyday life — that is not explored. Secular music is not encouraged.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What about visual art?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s limited. Religious calligraphy, that sort of thing.\u00a0 And when it comes to the stage: as far as American Muslims go, we don\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So one of the things you want to say is that artistic expression is not encouraged among Muslim Americans and should be?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes.\u00a0 The Imam at the mosque isn\u2019t necessarily going to tell me everything that I need to know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve found some of that in the theater?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned so much from being in the theater. I\u2019ve gained so many different perspectives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you encountered prejudice in your personal life?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Absolutely. I personally don\u2019t identify with the Muslim stereotype, but I have my name.\u00a0 It\u2019s on my passport.\u00a0 It\u2019s on my license. There\u2019s always the extra screening and being detained at the airports.\u00a0 Or people will make comments or we\u2019ll have eggs thrown at us. My parents are very orthodox and very visible in the community in Jacksonville, Florida.\u00a0 There have been bomb threats at the mosque where I grew up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I used to wear my religious hat in high school.\u00a0 In middle school, I used to wear a kufi. I did my best to identify as a Muslim. But the world changed for everybody after 9\/11. I remember distinctly somebody saying to me, \u201cI hope your family didn\u2019t have anything to do with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How old were you then?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was 15-years-old when that tragedy happened.\u00a0 And people tend to look at you unfairly. That\u2019s the reality. It\u2019s like being the only black kid in class or the only Jewish person in town. Fairly or unfairly, you have to be the voice of your people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you want people to take away from your play?<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want this play to be accessible to everybody, regardless of ideology.\u00a0 I want everyone to be able to take something away.\u00a0 For most of the people coming in to see the show, they know most of it, the journey that it takes. For them, hopefully I am holding up a mirror to our society so that they can see the hypocrisy, what we do to push people away.\u00a0 For a non-Muslim audience that is less informed about the religion or has never met a Muslim, I want them to be in that world and be exposed to it. There are a lot of different layers to this play.\u00a0 Everyone is going to take something different away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pray to Ball is being performed at Skylight Theatre, 1816 \u00bd N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through June 8. https:\/\/skylighttheatrecompany.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Also, read Lovell Estell III’s review<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First-time playwright Amir Abdullah’s play “Pray to Ball” is receiving its premiere at the Skylight Theatre. Deborah Klugman speaks with Abdullah about the play’s intersections of basketball, friendship and Islam. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_custom_body_class":"","_custom_post_class":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-column","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3749"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4049,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions\/4049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}