Review Fix chats with Aya Aziz, who discusses her unique one-woman musical “Eh Dah,†which is set for a six-show run at this year’s New York Musical Festival.â€
About The Production:
“Ghetto-Hippie-Arab-Commie-China Doll†Aya was shaped by the eclectic community of New York City. But Aya’s father, an Egyptian-American world-traveler, remained a mystery, as did her Muslim family. In this solo musical, Aya enacts the world she came from and the family she went in search of. With a range of accents, voices, and zany characters, Aya’s story deals with contemporary conflicts – identity, the culture war, Islamophobia, all while asking Eh Dah – what is this?!
For more on the production, click here.
Review Fix: What was the inspiration for Eh Dah?
Aya Aziz: I think the inspiration for Eh Dah? was really the music. I’d been writing since I was about 12 years old. My songs were my diary entry. When I was given an opportunity to perform them the story that wove these songs together poured out of the music. 

Review Fix: What do you think makes it special?
The show explores the avenues of assimilation and touches on the magic of finding home in an unfamiliar place. The characters of this show are what make it special; they are torn between their desire for acceptance and their fear of loss. But despite their foreignness, their goofy, imperfect, beautiful, humanity draws us to them as people.
Review Fix: What do you want the audience to get out of the production at the New York Musical Festival?
Aziz: To see ourselves in the “otherâ€.
Review Fix: How do you want it to be remembered in a few years?
Aziz: As a good time.
Review Fix: Bottom line, why should someone see Eh Dah?
Aziz: Eh Dah follows a young woman as she tries to grow closer to her Egyptian father and his side of the family. It explores both the freedoms and the pressures associated with living in 20th century North America as an Arab American migrant. The magnificent awkwardness of teenage identities grown somewhere between “East†and “West†make the foreign familiar.
Now more than ever we need to hold onto each other. We are all we have.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Aziz: Next I’ll be working on my EP and a play about Egypt and the Arab Spring as told through the eyes of my cousin: an activist, actress, and pantomime living in Alexandria. My dream is to write the play with her and find a way to bring her to New York for the summer so that she can take the stage. She is a phenomenal actress.
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