AFI is proud to present About My Mother, in collaboration with IRT Theater and Theatre 4the People’s Winter Festival. There will be two performances on Saturday, February 14, 2026 at 1:00 pm and at 4:00 pm.
As part of AFI’s 2025 Artist Community Network (ACN), three exceptional writer-performers, Achiro P. Olwoch, Lama El Homaïssi, and Yasmeen have spent a year in collaboration participating in peer mentorship, engaging in professional development, expanding their networks, and creating three solo plays. In three short solo plays, ACN writers explore “mother” as biological mother, ancestor, and homeland—tracing inheritance, exile, queerness, survival, and the many forms of legacy we carry:
MIN LALOC, UGANDA by Achiro P. Olwoch
In a lyrical one-person play, a queer Ugandan in exile confronts the ghost of her Motherland – Uganda – wrestling with love, betrayal, and the burden of memory, as she unravels what she’s been running from…and why she had to run too.
ZAHRA by Lama El Homaïssi
In a one-woman Hakawati play, Zahra recounts her journey of survival from Crete to Lebanon, where the trials of exile and arranged marriage bring an unexpected discovery about who she really is.
Allô? By Yasmeen.
“Dear god, it’s 1 a.m! Olga misses her sister’s phone call. Now she has to call the airport and ask them to transfer her to Australia. Throughout the call, she thinks she’s whispering while the entire neighborhood hears what slips out of the gossip.”