Our stories aren’t just plays: they’re also parties, figure drawing classes, referendums, auctions, and protests.
We create our pieces as an ensemble. We use some text, image, poem, or current event as a jumping-off point, then flesh out the full story together. We emphasize multi-media, interactivity, and things you can only do when you're in a room with other people. If theater is just in-person storytelling, then how many different ways can we tell a story, in-person?
Justice
The foremost reason we make theater is to ask a question that could better our socio-political reality.
Warmth
We are an artistic community more than we are a "company." In particular, we emphasize storytelling from BIPOC historically marginalized from the American theater.
Accessibility
We work toward the ideal of "absolute" accessibility by providing low-cost or free access to community members in need.
Elif was founded in late 2022 under the name Pale Fire Theater by Shayan Hooshmand, Henry Alper, Sophie Craig, Marie-Josée Bourelly, and Jennie Yu. We were New York college students who wanted to practice producing plays. After mounting the classics Waiting for Godot and This Is Our Youth, we pivoted our mission and focus towards developing new plays.
Elif is the first letter of the Semitic writing systems (used for Arabic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Persian, Swahili...). Elif lacks its own inherent sound; diacritic markings above or below Elif give its pronunciation.
Elif is a metaphor for collaboration. A text on its own has no voice – only through collaboration does it come to life.
