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Additional Resources around THE CAVE
We at A Red Orchid Theatre believe that theatre is the greatest sustenance for the human spirit. We approach our work with a palpable sense of social compassion, aesthetic rigor, and honesty, and seek to broaden perspectives and inspire change.
When Ensemble Member Sadieh Rifai brought her story, THE CAVE, to us, we knew it was a critically important piece to share with our audiences – right here in Chicago, right now in this political moment.
THE CAVE explores themes of anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, the scars of warfare and occupation on the human psyche, and the widespread impact that ‘othering’ has on all our immigrant communities here in the United States. And although the play is set in the timeline of the first Gulf War, these themes are as relevant and pressing as they were 30 years ago.
We invite you to delve deeper into THE CAVE with these additional resources to transform artistic vision into tangible change:
Gather & Experience:
A Red Orchid Theatre and Salon Kawakib present
Palestinian Poetry Night
Monday, February 17 at 7:00pm at A Red Orchid Theatre (1531 N Wells)
Join us and Salon Kawakib, a cultural salon for SWANA diaspora in Chicago, for a Palestinian Poetry Night, honoring and celebrating one of Palestine’s most exquisite and revered art forms, to benefit Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. A Red Orchid company members and friends will perform works by poets including George Abraham, Hala Alyan, Mahmoud Darwish, Noor Hindi, Fady Joudah, and Naomi Shihab Nye. Tickets for this event are free but are required for admission.
Featuring Ensemble Members Sadieh Rifai and Travis A. Knight with Gloria Imseih Petrelli and Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel with music by Ronnie Malley.
More about Palestine Children’s Relief Fund:
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), founded in 1991 by concerned humanitarians in the USA, provides free medical care to thousands of injured and ill children yearly who lack local access to care within the local health care system. Over the years, we’ve sent over 2,000 affected children abroad for free medical care, sent thousands of international doctors and nurses to provide tens of thousands of children free medical care in local hospitals, and provided tens of thousands of children humanitarian aid and support they otherwise would not get.
Engage:
Free talkbacks will follow all Thursday evening and Sunday matinee performances starting February 13. Please see below for a list of special guests:
Thursday, February 13
Guest: Alisa M. Bhachu, Executive Director, Chicago Refugee Coalition
Facilitated by Ensemble Member Lawrence Grimm
Thursday, February 20
Guest: Cindy Eigler, Incoming Executive Director, Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health
Facilitated by A Red Orchid Literary Coordinator Peter Ruiz
Thursday, February 27
Guest: Hollis Rabin, Associate Director of Behavioral Health, Trellus
Facilitated by A Red Orchid Literary Coordinator Peter Ruiz
Thursday, March 6
Guest: Eman Abdelhadi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago
Facilitated by Dramaturg Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel
Thursday, March 13
Guest: Maria Joy Ferrera, Ph.D., LCSW, Associate Professor, DePaul University, The Department of Social Work
Facilitated by A Red Orchid Literary Coordinator Peter Ruiz
Sunday talkbacks on February 16, 23, March 2 and 9 will be led by members of A Red Orchid Theatre’s Ensemble.
More about our guests:
Alisa Bhachu‘s twenty year career has focused within the human rights sector as an advocate for women and girls, namely refugees and asylum seekers, especially those displaced from throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Alisa’s career began as an intern with Amnesty International USA, where she went on to lead Amnesty’s national campaign on Refugees and Asylum. From 2012-2018 she led RefuSHE, an award-winning international NGO and she currently serves as Executive Director of the Chicago Refugee Coalition as well as co-founder of Refugee Can Be. Alisa’s leadership was honored as an International Leader by Chicago Woman magazine and has been named an Emerging Leader by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She frequently speaks on issues of forced migration and women’s rights having appeared on BBC, NPR, MSN, Refinery29, Chicago Tribune, ABC and CBS primetime news. Alisa holds certifications in Forced Migration from Northwestern and Oxford Universities, a BA in Humanities and an MA in Comparative Religions.
Cindy Eigler is the incoming Executive Director of the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health. As a first generation Venezuelan, Cindy brings to the role over twenty years of experience working on issues of state violence and trauma. Through her work with Generative Somatics, Cindy recognizes the many impacts of individual and systemic trauma and believes that centering people’s healing and transformation are integral for our movements to success. As the previous Co-Executive Director for the Chicago Torture Justice Center, Cindy helped developed a polticized healing framework recognizing the many intersecting ways our systems of oppression cause complex and compounded trauma in vulnerable communities. Cindy has her Masters in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.
Hollis Rabin is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with over 10 years of experience working with children and families in residential treatment, therapeutic and public schools, private practice, and community mental health settings. She specializes in helping individuals, couples, and families work through issues related to divorce, trauma, adoption, parenting, emotion regulation, identity development, and school troubles. She approaches therapy is a collaborative process, based on mutual trust and respect. Because words are only one part of the process, she incorporates mindfulness, art, and play into her work. She is currently the Associate Director of Behavioral Health at Trellus, where she has the privilege of supervising emerging counselors and graduate interns, and overseeing Trellus’s partnership with Chicago Public Schools.
Eman Abdelhadi is a scholar, organizer and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago, a columnist at In These Times magazine and co-author of the sci-fi novel: Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072.
Maria Joy Ferrera, PhD, LCSW is a second-generation Filipina American who received her PhD and MA from The University of Chicago, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She is an Associate Professor within DePaul University’s Department of Social Work and Co-Director of the Center for Community Health Equity (CCHE), a partnership between DePaul and Rush University to promote health equity. She is Co-Founder and interim Executive Director of the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health (CIMH), a collaborative, community based and research informed initiative that is a partnership between immigrants regardless of status, mental health practitioners, community organizers, researchers, and allies. Ferrera is on the Steering Committee of The Midwest Human Rights Consortium (MHRC), a network of medical and psychological professionals providing critical evidence needed to fairly determine asylum claims. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, she conducts pro-bono mental health forensic asylum assessments for MHRC. As a Fellow of DePaul University’s Urban Collaborative Community Research Initiative and recipient of DePaul’s Provost Collaborative grant, she is working with Documentary Filmmaker and Professor Dr. Anuradha Rana and community partner Johannes Favi, Deputy Director of the Illinois Community for Displaced Immigrants to employ documentary filmmaking within her research as a medium to elevate the stories of asylees and promote immigrant rights. This project aims to bring to light the historical antecedents of the asylum process in the United States that consider a humanitarian perspective of the migrant crises and deepen understanding of why migrants flee and what follows after asylum is granted – their stories of struggle, survival, resilience, and success.
Read:
We encourage you to delve deeper into the themes and subject matter of The Cave with our recommended books available at either Slant of Light Books (1543 N Wells) or Women & Children First (5233 N Clark St).
Available at Slant of Light Books:
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (Fiction)
After years away from her family’s homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. This is her first trip back since the second intifada and the deaths of their grandparents: while Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.
The 100 Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (Non-Fiction) – available online!
Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members―mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists―The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.
Available at Women & Children First (online orders accepted):
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri (Non-Fiction)
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel–turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials.
Mornings in Jenin: A Novel by Susan Abulhawa (Biographical Fiction)
In the refugee camp of Jenin, Amal is born into a world of loss-of home, country, and heritage. Her Palestinian family was driven from their ancestral village by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948. As the villagers fled that day, Amal’s older brother, just a baby, was stolen away by an Israeli soldier. In Jenin, the adults subsist on memories, waiting to return to the homes they love. Amal’s mother has walled away her heart with grief, and her father labors all day. But in the fleeting peacefulness of dawn, he reads to his young daughter daily, and she can feel his love for her, “as big as the ocean and all its fishes.” On those quiet mornings, they dream together of a brighter future.
They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri (Biography)
Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.
Watch:
Two powerful Palestinian films have been shortlisted for the 2025 Academy Awards:
From Ground Zero: Stories from Gaza
From Executive Producer Michael Moore and Palestine’s Official Submission for the 2025 Academy Awards, From Ground Zero, is a collection of revealing stories from 22 Palestinian filmmakers living through war, who capture their lives in Gaza amidst war. Using a blend of animation, documentary, and fiction, they create a powerful testament to the steadfastness of the human spirit. This film serves as a remarkable reflection of how art can thrive even in the darkest times, showcasing the enduring spirit and creativity that emerge amid ongoing devastation. Currently in theaters! Click here for screening times.
No Other Land
For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel’s occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight. No Other Land is an unflinching account of a community’s mass expulsion and acts as a creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice. Click here for streaming options!
Want more? Stream Where Olive Trees Weep, an exquisite exploration of Palestinian trauma and healing under occupation. Check out Watermelon Pictures’ collection of mostly Palestine-focused films with streaming options available. Or rent A Place To Breathe, an exploration of the universality of trauma and resilience through the eyes of immigrant and refugee healthcare practitioners and patients.
Listen:
Discover Chicago’s diverse migrant & refugee experiences. Rstories Podcast celebrates their journeys & fosters a future of cultural exchange. This podcast is produced by Trellus (see more information about Trellus below and hear more Hollis Rabin, Associate Director of Behavior Health, at our talkback on February 27.
Get Involved:
The Chicagoland community is full of grassroots and community organizations working hard to address the needs of the broader immigrant community and bridging the gaps in what our government funds and provides. We invite you to check out these organizations:
TRELLUS
- Based in West Ridge, Trellus provides behavioral health, community health, adult and childhood education, and more.
- Conversation volunteers needed for Adult Education/English language learning. Fluent English speakers are needed to be partners in Friday conversation class at 2838 W. Peterson from 9-11 am. Interested parties can contact Paul Thomas at pthomas@mytrellus.org
- Financial donations welcome and encouraged!
- To learn more and join the mailing list, visit mytrellus.org
GLOBAL GARDENS CHICAGO
- Founded in 2012, Global Gardens Chicago converted a vacant lot into a now one acre farm for over 60 refugee families in Albany Park to grow vegetables for their families and for sale. By providing land, tools, seed and training, this project builds on the traditional strengths of refugees from rural backgrounds to create food security and economic opportunity in their new home.
- Volunteers needed for occasional farm work days. Submit your interest here: www.globalgardenschicago.org/volunteer
- Financial donations welcome and encouraged!
- To learn more and join the mailing list, visit www.globalgardenschicago.org/contact
Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago
- Located in the Westridge neighborhood of Chicago, the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago (ECAC) was founded by a group of Ethiopian immigrants in 1984. Today ECAC serves refugees and immigrants from all over the world, including countries such as Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Burma, DRC, Venezuela, Ukraine, and Syria.
- ECAC offers employment readiness and job placement assistance, health and mental health coordination services, English as a second language classes, cultural orientation classes, and linkage to government benefits for the refugee and immigrant community.
- Volunteers needed, including one-on-one tutoring with English language learners and assisting clients with transportation to appointments.
- Donations welcome! New or gently used donations such as winter clothing, furniture, home goods, or monetary donations that will help refugees to begin to build their life in Chicago.
- For more information visit ecachicago.org or email info@ecachicago.org
Chicago Refugee Coalition:
- About: CRC believes in a Chicago that is an open and equitable place for refugees to call home through programming focused on hunger alleviation, resource distribution and (coming soon) childcare for refugee children.
- Volunteer: Many opportunities, including helping in the Resource Center, food banking, delivery and distribution, World Refugee Day event planning, and joining refugee advocacy efforts. To learn more and sign up, click here.
- Donations: Welcome and encouraged, both direct financial contributions and purchases on CRC’s Amazon wish list!
- For more information, visit www.chicagorefugee.org