Adil Mansoor

Adil Mansoor, theater artist. Photo credit: Beth Barbis.
Adil Mansoor, theater artist. Photo credit: Beth Barbis.

Mansoor is a theater director whose work combines performance, confessional storytelling, collective experiences and socially engaged practice. He engages audiences with questions he believes keep people up at night. Instead of answers, Mansoor seeks surprise, tension and joy. He is drawn to stories about the families we come from and the families we choose: An estranged sibling returning home to destroy a wedding, a trio of sisters haunted by their mother and a queer couple seen through the eyes of their backyard chickens. Most recently, he has explored his own story through AMM(I)GONE. 

“AMM(I)GONE, an adaptation of Sophocles’ ANTIGONE, is an apology to and from my mom,” he says. “Since discovering my queerness, my mother has turned towards her faith in an attempt to save me in the afterlife. In an effort toward healing, I invited my mom to join me as a dramaturg and co-conspirator. In reading, discussing and translating various adaptations of the source play, together we mine Greek tragedy, Islamic traditions and our memories to create an original performance locating love across faith. Can prayer substantiate care? Can care manifest as artistic methodology and inquiry? Can my mother and I contend with Antigone’s fate?” The play was first presented in 2022 by Kelly Strayhorn Theater and embarked on a national tour in 2024 that has so far included runs in Washington D.C and New Haven, Connecticut.