ISite

ISite is a one-woman show focusing on Leila Buck's story and those of her Lebanese and American family members, tracing a life lived in constant transit and co-existence between two worlds. In a series of sketches ranging from her life as a young child rejecting the humiliation of multiple languages, to her grandfather's story of home and exile, to her mother's discovery of an ancient tomb, through her own struggle to describe the Middle East to a bigoted dinner guest and the hilarious trials of a primping, tweezing American college girl lamenting the oppression of Muslim women, with comical memories and moving discoveries, Leila leads her audience on a deeply personal and yet ultimately universal journey through identity, Otherness, and the worlds in between.

Leila Buck

Leila Buck is a teacher, performer, writer and storyteller. She is the Education Director for Nibras Arab-American Theater Collective and a teaching artist with Creative Arts Team at the City University of New York. In addition to her work in the classroom, she frequently leads professional developments for teachers in drama as a tool for literacy and social awareness. Her award-winning one-woman show, ISite, an educational piece about her Arab-American experience, has toured schools, universities and conferences all over the United States as well as in Belgium, France, Switzerland and China. She also works as an actor training law students to handle clients through mediation. Her latest projects include an interactive performance on Israeli and Palestinian identities. The daughter of a Lebanese mother and American diplomat father, Leila is conversationally fluent in Spanish, French and Arabic and has lived in Kuwait, Oman, Iraq and Lebanon and traveled extensively in both China and Europe.