Latest news

World premiere of a Good day to Me not to you  ​concludes run at The Connelly in NYC. Stay tuned for more news!

My play A Good Day to Me Not to You ran at the Connelly Theater in NYC through December 16, 2023 to beautiful reviews and overwhelming audience response.  Directed by Lee Sunday Evans and produced by Waterwell and presented through special arrangement with Plate Spinner Productions.  More production info here. Stay tuned for where GOOD DAY goes next. I'm so excited to take this wild little play out into the world!

IN THE MEDIA

In this wryly candid confessional, Issaq plays a New Yorker with a mordant sense of humor weathering a downswing. A Good Day to Me Not to You opts for all-out vulnerability, dissecting the psyche as if the stage were an operating table.

Directed with graceful sensitivity by Lee Sunday Evans, Issaq's performance is both tender and frank, flipping with ease between directly addressing the audience as the narrator and voicing succinctly sketched characters.
- New York Times
"Full Exposure? Four Solo Shows Ponder the Art of True Nature"

A Good Day to Me Not to You proceeds from chatty confessionalism to extraordinary pathos, moving so swiftly that we almost don't notice the transition. Issaq is relaxed and wry...the show, brimming with jokes, also goes deep, looking past the smile to find the skull beneath. 
- New Yorker
Goings-on Off Broadway

Issaq is very comfortable on stage, in her skin, and she tells an excellent story. Her sense of humor and comic timing are almost impeccable, and her portrayals of the various characters she encounters are distinct, yet artfully subtle. As a work of writing, A Good Day to Me Not to You is blisteringly funny and seems deceptively shapeless, almost like a meandering evening of stand-up comedy, until it comes together to a fine point.
- Theaterscene


AUDIENCE RESPONSE

Totally dug Lameece Issaq’s solo. Very fresh. Very immediate. It was like she was telling me the story. Never saw where she was taking us. Had me thinking all the way through. Bravo!
- Eric Bogosian 
NYTimes comments

I saw A GOOD DAY TO ME NOT TO YOU last night and was utterly enraptured, then emotionally overwhelmed. I'm so impressed by Lameece Issaq's writing -- how the piece started with a casual, often hilarious intimacy, then crept up to engulf my heart before I knew what was happening, and landed in a moment of transcendent grace. This was of course made possible by a powerfully truthful performance and an exquisite production which created a world both familiar and mysteriously unsettling.
- David Henry Hwang

Incredibly moved by Lameece Issaq’s searing portrait of grief in A Good Day to Me Not to You. Nothing about this narrative is tidy, which makes the last 20 minutes of the play all the more powerful and terrifying.
- NYTimes comments

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Stepping down from Noor Theatre

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After 13 years, I'm leaving my role as Artistic Director of Noor Theatre. It's been a profound experience being a part of the MENA/SWANA community as a leader and artist, and I'm thrilled to pass the torch to the next generation of theatremakers. Read my full statement here.

Latest Audiobook Given AudioFile Magazine's Earphones Award

This brilliant, swashbuckling tale by the talented Shannon Chakraborty about a middle aged lady pirate was a blast to narrate. Thrilled it was given AudioFile's "Earphones Award," given to "truly exceptional titles that excel in narrative voice and style." Read about it here.
Narrators Lameece Issaq and Amin El Gamal deliver this exciting fantasy audiobook full of pirates and monsters. The legendary Amina al-Sirafi settles peacefully into retirement, content to raise her daughter and put her storied career of piracy behind her. But a wealthy woman's kidnapped granddaughter and the reward promised for her safe return call Amina back for one last adventure. Issaq voices Amina with sardonic wit and confidence. As she occasionally speaks to her scribe, Jamal, who is recording her biography, sound effects like rustling maps, knocking on doors, and a moving microphone immerse listeners in her tales. Jamal, voiced by El Gamal, connects Amina's narrative with the legendary artifacts and people she meets along the way, providing a variety of unique voices for the latter. 
​- AudioFile Magazine

Abe, featured at Sundance, now playing on Amazon


The feature I co-wrote with Jake Kader, Abe, starring Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp, and featured at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, is now playing on Amazon. Created and directed by Fernando Grostein Andrade.
“Abe,” is one of those family films you don’t need a family to enjoy. It’s about families, though, their blessings and curses, and at a time when coronavirus and quarantine have forced relatives to live apart from each other, the movie serves as a reminder of how much sustenance can be found in getting everyone together.
​- Boston Globe
Grostein Andrade directs with energy and enthusiasm, especially when it comes to communicating the online dimension of Abe’s social life (all his friends are virtual, though negative comments can still feel intensely personal). Among “Abe’s” strengths is that the film never talks down to its child characters or the audience.
​- Variety
Andrade serves up an enticing dramedy that wholeheartedly celebrates the potential for multicultural cuisine to unite people from distinctly different traditions, even in the face of determined opposition.
- Hollywood Reporter