CAATA ㅣ Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists

🎊 This year is CAATA's 20th Anniversary! We've got events planned throughout the year and can't wait to have you join us to celebrate. First up on January 19th is an all access CAATA Connects open forum to share information on the year and hear from all of you. Link in bio to register! 🤯 CAATA Conversations: Reflecting the structure of past CAATA programming, these will be virtual panels on a variety of topics 🤗 CAATA Communities: regional in-person gatherings across the country! 🥰 CAATA Connects: member-only spaces designed for informal connection, reflection, and relationship-building across roles, regions, and identities. Become a member for early notifications and access. Link in bio or DM us for more info! --- Our 20th anniversary celebration is a time for reflection, joy, resistance, and evolution. It is a chance to honor the resilience of our community and to look boldly into the future. Two decades ago, CAATA was founded with a simple yet vital mission: to advance the field of Asian American theater through a national network of organizations and artists. Since then, our goals have evolved, and our mission has expanded to build a vibrant, inclusive, and equitable cultural future for artists and communities that identify as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander (AANHPI), Southwest Asian, North African (SWANA), Middle Eastern North African (MENA), and mixed-race diasporas.

At CAATA, our work is guided by values that come from community care, ancestral knowledge, and cultural resilience. 💛 Collective power over individual competition 💛 Intergenerational learning and leadership 💛 Justice through storytelling 💛 Collaboration across identities and lineages 💛 Sustainability for artists and organizations We believe Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian (AAPINH), SWANA, and mixed-race artists are not just participants in the field—we are visionaries shaping its future. 📣 What value speaks to you most? Let us know in the comments.

CAATA was born from a dream of connection—in 2006, leaders across Asian American theater gathered to build something bigger than any one company could do alone. That dream became ConFest: a national festival and convening rooted in art, activism, and collective care. Since then, CAATA has grown into a hub for radical collaboration, historic performance, and fierce love for our community’s past, present, and future. We honor our ancestors and elders. We celebrate our peers and pathbreakers. We invest in the next generation. We gather to remember. We gather to imagine. 📸 Tag yourself if you’ve been part of a past ConFest or CAATA moment!

Meet Meena Natarajan, one of the panelists for our next CAATA Conversations: Diaspora Stories - MENA/SWANA Over the Years. Join us on May 11th at 2pm EDT on Howlround. Meena Natarajan is a playwright and director and the Artistic and Executive Director of Pangea World Theater, an international ensemble space that creates at the intersection of art, equity and social justice. Meena has co-curated and designed many of Pangea World Theater’s professional and community-based programs. She has written at least ten full-length works for Pangea, ranging from adaptations of poetry and mythology to original works dealing with war, spirituality, personal and collective memory. Her play, Etchings in the Sand co-created with dancer Ananya Chattterjea has been published by Routledge in a volume called Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: The Second Edition. Meena leads ensemble-based processes in Pangea that lead to works produced for the stage. She has also directed and dramaturged several original theater and performance art pieces. She is currently on the board of the National Performance Network, Longfellow Rising and the Loft.

Meet Adam A. Elsayigh, one of the panelists for our next CAATA Conversations: Diaspora Stories - MENA/SWANA Over the Years. Join us on May 11th at 2pm EDT on Howlround. Cairo-Born and Dubai-raised, Adam Ashraf Elsayigh’s childhood entwined a Muslim Egyptian home, American cable, and British schooling in a migrant-majority city. This upbringing at the cross-section of cultures is at the core of the artist Adam is. Today, Adam is an U.S.-based playwright and theatermaker of stage and screenplays about modern people navigating themes of queerness, labor, and class while living across and between cultures. Adam’s writing (Drowning in Cairo, Memorial, ALAA: A Family Trilogy) has been developed across four continents, including at Sundance, NYTW, and Golden Thread. Adam is a Georgetown Global Performance Lab Fellow. He holds a BA in Theater and Dramaturgy from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College.

Meet Sahar Assaf, one of the panelists for our next CAATA Conversations: Diaspora Stories - MENA/SWANA Over the Years. Join us on May 11th at 2pm EDT on Howlround. Sahar Assaf is a theatre director, producer, and multidisciplinary creative leader working at the intersection of arts, education, and social impact. From 2021 to 2025, she served as Executive Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, where she curated and produced four seasons of world premieres, classical, commissioned and devised works, expanding the company’s scope and reach. Her 2024 Season for Palestine drew record audiences, deepening national and international engagement and reinforcing theatre as a space for dialogue and solidarity. Assaf previously taught at the American University of Beirut, where she co-founded the Theatre Initiative and directed classical and contemporary works alongside devised documentary and site-specific performances. She is also a trainer and consultant, designing programs that support mental fitness, leadership, and team effectiveness, drawing on theatre-based and neuroscience-informed methodologies. A Fulbright Scholar, she is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and co-founder of Directors Lab Mediterranean. She has presented her work internationally and contributed to scholarship on theatre and performance practice.

Meet Andrea Assaf, one of the panelists for our next CAATA Conversations: Diaspora Stories - MENA/SWANA Over the Years. Join us on May 11th at 2pm EDT on Howlround. Andrea Assaf is a writer, theatre-maker, and cultural organizer. She’s the founding Artistic & Executive Director of Art2Action, and Co-Director of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation (with Pangea World Theater). Her work has been featured at the 2025 D-CAF festival in Cairo, Arab American National Museum, Detroit Public Theatre, Golden Thread Productions/BRAVA, Carver Community Cultural Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) at CAATA’s National Asian American Theatre Festival, La MaMa, The Apollo, The Kennedy Center, and more. Awards and recognitions include: 2025 Creative Impact Award, 2025 Venturous Playwright finalist, 2024 Joyce Award, 2021 Silk Road Film Awards Cannes (Best Experimental Feature), 2019 NEFA National Theatre Project, 2017 Freedom Plow Award finalist (Poetry & Activism), 2010 Princess Grace Award (Directing), and more. Andrea has a Master’s in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting, both from NYU. She has been a founding Board member of both CAATA and the MENA Theatre-Makers Alliance, and currently serves on the Executive Committee of Alternate ROOTS.

Meet Torange Yeghiazarian, the host of the next CAATA Conversations: Diaspora Stories - MENA/SWANA Over the Years. Join us on May 11th at 2pm EDT on Howlround. Torange Yeghiazarian is a playwright, director, and community-builder working towards enriching the US Theater canon with Middle Eastern voices and aesthetics. A post-1979-revolution transplant from Iran, Torange believes that the personal is inherently political. Her plays frequently explore the cultural divide with tenderness and humor from an immigrant woman’s perspective. As a director, Torange’s focus has been on new plays, experimenting with Middle Eastern performance traditions, and adaptation of classics. Torange founded Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East and its global diaspora, and is a co-founder of Middle Eastern North African Theater Makers Alliance. Torange’s latest play, The Tutor, premiered at the New Conservatory Theatre in 2024. Publications include: New Iranian Plays, Performing Iran, Casting A Movement, Salaam. Peace Anthology, The Drama Review, American Theatre Magazine, AmerAsia Journal, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, and the Cambridge World Encyclopedia of Stage Actors. /

Two exciting Board updates - please welcome Hone Kouka as he joins the Board and congratulate Stefanie Lau as she steps into the Vice President role! Read a little more about them below and get connected over on our Circle page. Hone is an acclaimed Māori writer, producer, and director, as well as a father and member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. He is a multi-award-winning playwright, the youngest recipient of the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, and a 2022 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate. His plays have been produced internationally and include Ngā Tangata Toa, Waiora: Te Ūkaipō, The Prophet, and Bless The Child. He co-founded Tawata Productions and the Kia Mau Festival, and has also contributed to film projects such as Born to Dance and Mahana. Stefanie Lau is a producer and arts administrator whose work over the last 25 years brings equity, diversity and inclusion to Los Angeles theatre. As a co-Founder and co-Producing Artistic Leader of Artists at Play, Stefanie produces mainstage shows, new play development programs, Theatre for Young Audience performances, fundraisers, and other special events. She is a Development Associate at the Latino Theater Company, managing individual giving and donor events. Stefanie previously worked at Center Theatre Group, East West Players, Ford Amphitheater and Cold Tofu Improv. A graduate of UCLA, Stefanie sits on the national board of the Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists, steering committee of the new Theatre Commons Los Angeles service organization, and is a member of the Artistic Directors of Color Alliance – Greater Los Angeles and Theatre Producers of Southern California.

Thank you so much to kt shorb for your nine years of service on CAATA's Board, including serving as our most recent Vice President! We deeply appreciate all you have done for this community and can't wait to see you at future events. kt shorb holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin, including a PhD in Performance as Public Practice, and has trained with the SITI Company and Theatrical Intimacy in Education. They direct ensemble-devised theatre and opera, with credits including Wolf Trap Opera and Chicago Summer Opera. Their scholarship explores how queer theatre artists of color create spectacular, physics-defying moments, and they write for American Theatre magazine. kt has taught at multiple universities and most recently served as Vice President of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists.

🤯Our next CAATA Conversations is coming up on May 11th at 2pm ET! Come find us on Howlround and listen in to a conversation reconnecting artists, activists, and organizations who have shaped the MENA and SWANA theatre legacy. This panel will explore what solidarity looks like right now: - Solidarity between theatre companies? Between different communities of color? Toward those who are most impacted by oppression? Toward international communities? - How do identity based groups collaborate without losing specificity? - How can we work together to expand opportunities rather than find ourselves competing for the limited resources? Link in bio to find the Howlround livestream page!

Introducing one of our incoming interns, Alexandria Chua! Alexandria Chua is a third-year BFA Lighting Design student at Mason Gross, Rutgers University. They are looking forward to working with CAATA to build upon their knowledge of the professional industry, as well as be a part of the organization’s mission to bring together Asian theatre makers! They were born and raised in Malaysia, and are very in touch with their family and culture. In their free time they love to cook and spend time with their dog Marley, and their cat, Romeo!