Ten years after traveling to Saudi Arabia to make a minor pilgrimage to Mecca, playwright Humaira Ghilzai, ’90 International Business, is translating the experience to the stage in “Pilgrimage,” a play she co-wrote with playwright Bridgette Dutta Portman. Produced by Golden Thread Productions and presented at Z Space Theatre in San Francisco, “Pilgrimage” premieres on October 24 and runs through November 9.
“I’m the first Afghan American woman who’s had a play produced professionally in the United States,” she says. “It’s a big milestone and a proud moment.”
“Pilgrimage” follows five women — Noor, an Afghan American immigrant; her daughter Maryam, a tech CEO; her two nieces Sosan and Nadia; and Fatima, a Black Muslim convert and Nadia’s best friend — as they journey to Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. Inspired by Ghilzai’s 2015 trip, she collaborated with Portman to create characters, outline the story and workshop the work in progress over the course of a few years.
“The play is a mix of mothers and daughters, friends and sisters, and the complex dynamic of families traveling together,” she says. “The play portrays Muslim women as successful and independent; they are not oppressed, they have careers and they have agency. Our goal was to portray nuanced Muslim women. Our characters are strong women who are dealing with inner demons, long-standing rivalries and secrets that challenge every step of this journey. The play is filled with humor and absurdities of travel; a relatable family trip that we hope will resonate with people.”
“Pilgrimage” actors blocking a scene. Photo: Wynne Chan.
Humaira Ghilzai (standing, far left) and the cast and crew of “Pilgrimage.” Photo: Wynne Chan.
The cast of “Pilgrimage” during an early rehearsal. Photo: Wynne Chan.
Ghilzai knows a thing or two about authentic cultural representation. Though “Pilgrimage” is a work of fiction, much of her work is inspired by her own experiences as an Afghan American. In 1980, she and her family fled Kabul as political asylees. She later earned a degree in business at San José State and worked as a marketer for Sun Microsystems and Oracle. In 2002, she cofounded the Afghan Friends Network, a charitable organization that provides education and infrastructure development assistance to communities in Afghanistan. A few years later, she helped establish Hayward as a sister city to Ghazni, making it the third Afghan sister city in the U.S.
In addition to her work as a cultural advisor, dialect coach and storyteller, she consulted on the Broadway and West End production of “The Kite Runner,” the 2003 novel of the same name by Khaled Hosseini that was adapted by SJSU Performance Studies Professor Matthew Spangler in 2007. She also consulted on the second season of “Little America,” an anthology series produced by Apple TV+, and collaborated with composer Sheila Silver on an opera based on Hosseini’s novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”
Throughout the years, Ghilzai has continued to collaborate with Spangler. In 2023, he invited Ghilzai and Portman to San José State to workshop “Pilgrimage.”
“I was thrilled to host a developmental staged reading of the script at San José State in the fall of 2023, supported by an Artistic Excellence Programming Grant through the College of Humanities and the Arts,” says Spangler. “Pilgrimage’ is an important, and rare, play that simultaneously touches on family dynamics, the nature of friendship and love, cultural identity, gender and immigration. To see this play now come to a full production at Golden Thread is just magical.”
Ghilzai explains how critical it is to receive audience feedback throughout the development process, and how special it was to return to her alma mater.
“SJSU students supported us with dramaturgy, marketing and help with sound and lighting at the theater,” she says. “It was really eye-opening because up until then, we’d only had limited audiences, but at SJSU it was fun to see younger people engage with the work. We heard them chuckling and responding to the mother-daughter relationships and the connection to Silicon Valley.”
Ghilzai will be sharing more “Pilgrimage” behind the scenes details alongside fellow playwright Bridgette Dutta Portman at a special post-show conversation moderated by Egyptian actor Kal Naga on Friday, October 31. Visit the Z Space website to get tickets and learn more.