Every month on The Subtext, Brian speaks with a playwright about life, writing, and no matter itches we’re scratching.

This month Brian travels to Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Sick., to talk with author/director Kareem Fahmy. A Canadian-born director, playwright, and screenwriter of Egyptian descent, Fahmy has directed and developed performs at theatres nationwide, together with Dodi & Diana (O’Neill NPC finalist, world premiere at Colt Coeur), American Quick (Woodward/Newman Award Winner, NNPN rolling world premiere at Artists Repertory Theatre, Metropolis Theatre, InterAct), A Distinct Society (co-world premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Pioneer Theatre, and Writers Theatre), The Triumphant (Goal Margin), Pareidolia, The In-Between (Noor Theatre), and an adaptation of the bestselling novel The Yacoubian Constructing. Kareem has been a fellow or resident artist on the Sundance Theatre Lab, MacDowell, Yaddo, New Concord Challenge, Oregon Shakespeare Pageant (Phil Killian Directing Fellow),The Outdated Globe (Classical Directing Fellow), Eugene O’Neill Theatre Heart (Nationwide Administrators Fellow), Second Stage (Van Lier Directing Fellow), Soho Rep (Author/Director Lab), Lincoln Heart (Administrators Lab), the New Museum (artist-in-residence), Stratford Pageant, and New York Theatre Workshop (rising artist fellow and Normal Suspect). And he’s a former TCG Rising Chief of Shade. He obtained his MFA in directing from Columbia College.

Kareem talks about discovering his path to theatre as an adolescent rising up in Canada. As a baby of immigrants, he felt a sure stress to discover a sensible profession, so when he accomplished undergrad he started a profession as a bodily therapist. However his love of the stage by no means waned, so he began a small theatre firm in Montreal and directed performs on the facet. This went on till somebody who noticed certainly one of his performs informed him, “You must do that as a profession.” That put him on the trail to Columbia College, the place he studied with Anne Bogart.

However it’s Fahmy’s playwriting that has lately taken the highlight. The present Writers Theatre manufacturing of A Distinct Society is his eighth this season. So is that this success? When requested the query, first he laughs, then solutions critically: Success is about freedom, together with the liberty to write down no matter he needs. Because the places it, “My story is just not restricted to my identification. My tales are rooted in fact, and that reality transcends my lived identification and expertise. That will probably be success to me.”