about

I AM AN actor, voice over actor, writer and Founding Artistic Director of Obie Award-winning company, Noor Theatre. I am based in LA & NYC.

​I WAS RAISED in a small desert oasis famous for legalized gambling, prostitution, and a championship college basketball team once led by a towel-chewing Shark. 

MY PARENTS IMMIGRATED from the Holy Land to Vegas in the 70s where the debauched all-you-can-eat vibe was at odds  with their strict and often terrified approach to child rearing.  I am the confused result of many, many mixed messages. 

​​AFTER I EARNED an MFA in acting from UT Austin, I moved to New York City where I lived on the edge of an economic cliff for 15 years. Such proximity to fiscal danger led me to take up residence in such places as a woman's rooming house run by nuns; an artist building shared with the formerly homeless; and my nephew's old play room.

WHILE IN NYC, I co-founded Noor Theatre, a company dedicated to the work of theater artists of Middle Eastern descent; wrote my first full-length play, Food and Fadwa, and performed in it off-Broadway, where a nice-ish critic said my performance was "stunning;" and won a Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble in the play Stuff Happens.  

WHEN I WASN'T doing fun artsy stuff, I was mostly harassed on subways by slightly deranged people, one of whom insisted I had "a spiritual infection in my intestines."

I NOW live in Venice where I am raising 14 succulents.