Aidaa Peerzada
(She/her) is a writer and performer who grew up between Baltimore, Maryland, and Lahore, Pakistan. The descendant of two artists from different cultural traditions, her background as an African American and First Generation American Pakistani is at the heart of her artistic practice. She was a 2020 recipient of the Theatre Bay Area Directors Residency. Aidaa studied at the Baltimore School for the Arts and went on to receive her BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University. Some artistic roles she has served in include teaching artist, producer, generative writing facilitator, new play director, new play dramaturg, and audience outreach coordinator.
As an actor, Aidaa has performed with Marin Theatre Co., Word for Word, SFBATCO, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare, Utah Shakespeare, Steppenwolf, American Players Theatre, and Quantum Theatre. One of her favorite roles was “The Social Distance Butterfly,” a character of her creation who floated around San Francisco as part of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Creative Core, an effort that brought artists into communities to spread Covid safety awareness in 2020.
Workshops of her original work include Children of the Wise (Prop Theatre) Aliyah and The Princess Jasmine Barbie ( Catalyst: Theatre Think Tank, Meet Cute LA) SHINING, (The New Roots Theater Festival; SFBATCO), One Google and One (SFBATCO), and She co-wrote the book and story for the original musical Sunflowered, which is premiering in Northern Sky Theatre’s 2022 season. She was a semi-finalist for the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. In her writing, she often explores the phenomenon of the erasure of BIPOC people in popular history, and her plays focus on excavating cultural mythology to inform the present.
She has assistant directed for Giovanna Sardelli at Magic Theatre. She has also assisted Marcelo Javier at SF Bay Area Theatre Co. She recently directed a staged reading of Pilgrimage by Humaria Ghilzai and Bridgett Portman Dutta in the ‘New Threads’ series at Golden Thread Productions. This fall, she Co-Directed a staged workshop of Sign My Nam to Freedom for SFBATCO’s ‘New Roots Theatre Festival. Aidaa believes that theatre can be a transformative space where social change and solution-building happen. Her work is a form of activism that builds conscious empathy between communities. In spaces she leads, she seeks to explore complex social issues in a way that inspires wonder, awe, curiosity, and laughter.
