APEIROGON: RAMI AND BASSAM
Play by Avner Ben-Amos
from the acclaimed 2020 novel by Colum McCann,
with Dramaturgy and Original Direction by Sinai Peter
January 27 – February 21, 2026
at UNMC • 1810 16th Street, NW • DC
Part of this year’s
Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival (Part II): Trauma and Transformation
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SYNOPSIS | CREATIVE TEAM
SYNOPSIS
A theatrically distilled adaptation of the acclaimed 2020 National Book Award winning novel by Colum McCann that tells the fractured story of two fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, brought together by the loss of their daughters. Despite being raised to hate one another, they find common ground in their grief and form an unlikely friendship.
The novel, inspired by the real-life stories of Rami Elhanan, an Israeli, whose daughter, Smadar was killed by suicide bombers, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian whose daughter, Abir was killed by a rubber bullet shot by the IDF. Despite their backgrounds and the hatred ingrained in their societies, the two fathers accidentally connect and, through their shared grief and trauma, recognize the humanity in each other's stories and history to begin a difficult journey of healing and reconciliation.
A week of workshop readings in English was presented with last winter in Washington, following the world premiere staging in Hebrew and Arabic at the Jaffa Theatre in where the work continues to play in repertory to sold out houses.
VFP’s American Premiere production offers updated material to account for so many newly unfolding realities.
MEET THE CREATIVE TEAM
Avner Ben-Amos (Adapter) is a playwright and historian, recipient of the Israeli Playwright of the Year Award (2017), with director Micha Lewensohn, for the adaptation of David Grossman’s novel A Horse Walks into a Bar (staged at the Cameri Theatre, 2017 - 2025). Ben-Amos specializes in docudramas and the adaptations of novels for the stage. Among his plays: Dionysus at the Center, with Ruth Kanner, based on Tamar Berger’s eponymous book (Ruth Kanner’s Theater Group, 2004-2005); He Walked through the Fields, with Mor Frank, based on Moshe Shamir’s eponymous novel (Ruth Kanner’s Theater Group, 2013-2014); Year Zero: 1929, based on Hillel Cohen’s book, Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929, at Jaffa Theater (2021-2022). Ben-Amos is also a professor of history of education at Tel-Aviv University. He studies collective memory and political rituals in modern France and Israel.
Colum McCann is the author of eight novels, three collections of stories and two works of non-fiction. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he has been the recipient of many international honours, including the U.S National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish arts academy, several European awards, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. In 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts. His work has been published in over 40 languages. He is the President and co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4. He lives in New York with his wife Allison and their family. His 2009 novel “Let the Great World Spin” has sold a million copies in the United States alone, and was voted on the New York Times Readers List, “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” “Apeirogon,” published in 2020, became an immediate New York Times best-seller and won several major international awards. His first major non-fiction book, “American Mother,” was published in February 2024, and was a bestseller in Ireland, Italy and France.
His newest novel, “Twist,” was published in March, 2025. It received star-rated reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and The Bookseller. His fellow novelist Salman Rushdie has written: “Colum McCann gives us a powerfully realist novel of men at sea, literally, emotionally, and metaphorically. It speaks of the brokenness of our time, the successful and unsuccessful attempts at repairs, and the vulnerability of our world. The spirit of Joseph Conrad hovers over the text, but here the heart of darkness lies at the bottom of the ocean.”
Sinai Peter (Original Direction and Dramaturgy) is an accomplished theater director, producer, educator and actor who’s worked for over half a century in Israel, Europe and the US. Together with The San Francisco Mime Troupe team, he co-wrote and toured with the play Seeing Double which won OBIE Award in 1990. Since that time, he’s served as Artistic Director of Neve Zedek Theater in Tel Aviv, and the Haifa Municipal Theatre where he has directed The Swan, Clearing, The Graduate, Chimps, The Resistible Rise of Arturo UI, Transfer, Machinal, and Unsung Heroes, a project based on civilians experience during the Lebanese war. Other Israeli credits of note include A Man's a Man at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem, Oved Shabbat (The Return) by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast at the Al Midan Theater before its Washington DC premiere in 2017 at Mosaic as part of “Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival.”
For Theater J, where the Middle East Festival was born, Sinai has directed Motti Lerner’s Pangs of The Messiah (2007), Hillel Mittelpunkt’s The Accident (2009) and the Cameri Theater production of Return To Haifa based on the Palestinian novella by Gassan Kanafani, adapted by Boaz Gaon, which performed in DC in Hebrew and Arabic for 17 sold out performances in 2011. In 2014, he directed Motti Lerner’s The Admission which transferred to Studio Theatre, and then a year later, opened at the Jaffa Theatre where it ran for two years. In 2016, Sinai returned to DC to teach at American University as a Visiting Professor and directed the world premiere of Lerner’s After The War for Mosaic. Together with Chel Alon he co-directed The Peacock of Silwan by Alma Ganihar at the Akko Festival for Alternative Theatre and then at The Jaffa Theatre. Most recent directing credits in Israel include Yulia, an adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie by Israel Hameiri in The Studio Theater of Haifa; Ana min elYahud by Ilanit Swissa inspired by Almog Behar for Jaffa Theater. He directed Shnat Efes/Year Zero a docudrama about the bloody events of 1929 in Palestine by Avner Ben Amos, inspired by Hilell Kohen at Jaffa Theater. He's directed Israeli premieres of American writers like David Ives' New Jerusalem, and George Brant's The Tender Age and Grounded. He has acted in television dramas in the roles of David Ben Gurion and Eliezer Ben Yehuda and in movies such as Shuru and Beyond the Sea. He has acted at the Haifa Municipal Theatre, Bet Lessin Theatre and the Orna Porat Children and Youth Theatre and has taught for decades at Seminar Hakibutzim and the college HaGalilee HaMaaravi. Other teaching residencies abroad, have included Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, Uganda, and Kyrgyzstan.
Dramaturgy
Colum McCann (Author) is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He is known as an international writer who believes in the "democracy of storytelling" and is the author of the National Book Award Winning Novel, Apeirogon. McCann was born February 28, 1965 in Dublin, Ireland, and currently resides in New York. He has won numerous awards, including the U.S. National Book Award and the International Dublin Literary Award, and his work has been published in over 40 languages as well as being published in many American and international publications. He also is the co-founder and president of Narrative 4, an international empathy education nonprofit. McCann is the author of seven novels, including Apeirogon (2020), TransAtlantic (2013) and the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin (2009). He has also written three collections of short stories, including Thirteen Ways of Looking, released in October 2015. American Mother was released in March 2024 and tells the story of Diane Foley, whose son, James Foley, was captured and killed by ISIS while serving as a freelance combat reporter in Syria. His latest novel, Twist, was released in March 2025.
This extraordinary novel is the fruit of a seed planted when the novelist Colum McCann met the real Bassam and Rami on a trip with the non-profit organization Narrative 4. McCann was moved by their willingness to share their stories with the world, by their hope that if they could see themselves in one another, perhaps others could too.