the semiticroot presents
                                 

CHOCOLATE IN HEAT: Growing Up Arab In America
                     a play by BETTY SHAMIEH

                       directed by SAM GOLD
          performed by PITER FATTOUCHE and BETTY SHAMIEH
                  lighting designer: BEN STANTON
              production assistant: MARIEL DELGHAVI
          press: TIMOTHY HASKELL at PUBLICITY OUTFITTERS

                             The Tank
       432 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues)
                (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com
                       September 4th - 27th & October 7 - 18


Betty Shamieh's CHOCOLATE IN HEAT: Growing Up Arab In
America sold out in the 2001 NYC Fringe Festival and was
performed in the First Light Festival at Chashama where it was
highlighted as a standout piece by The New York Times.  The
SemeticRoot, an organization designed to enable New Yorkers of
Arab and Jewish descent to create theatre together, has chosen this
poignant coming-of-age-with-an-Arab-slant play as its first
production - a timely and fortunate venture for those who have not
had the opportunity to experience it.  Through a multitude of
characters masterfully performed by Shamieh and Piter Fattouche, 
the universal subjects of Need, Love, Ignorance, Sex and Justice are
addressed.  Shamieh combines raw honesty with humor and
American street language to portray the problems of growing up in
between two cultures.  An Arab prince bonds with a Puerto Rican
prostitute (both played by Fattouche) in an attempt to protect all
females; an overachieving Arab-American student learns life lessons
from a Black illiterate dance mentor (Shamieh does both characters); 
and so it goes.  CHOCOLATE IN HEAT is an impressive effort,
one that should be attempted more often,  to bring the two cultures
closer together by reminding us that as humans we all have similar
needs and aspirations.  
          
                       - Laurie Lawson -

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