Raya Tuffaha

Raya is a Palestinian actor, fight director and writer based in Seattle. She’s interested in muscular stories.

Her love for physical storytelling began at a ballet school in Amman, then flourished at an acting conservatory in London. After completing an undergraduate thesis in fight direction at Swarthmore College, she began training with the Society of American Fight Directors and Theatrical Intimacy Education. She now choreographs staged violence at theatres around the Seattle area. She also helped revitalize The Seattle Sockeye stage combat workshop in 2024, and continues to serve as a coordinator.

Her debut poetry collection, To All the Yellow Flowers (Golden Antelope Press, 2020), was featured in Ms. Magazine’s National Poetry Month Roundup. Her chapbook, apocalypse blues, followed in 2022. Other publications include Phoebe Journal, Mizna Online, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Succarnochee Review, and Button Poetry. Her commission with Seattle Opera, a 20-minute libretto with compositions by Carolyn Quick, premiered in June 2025.

Raya is currently pursuing research on audience-performer power dynamics in staged violence. She aims to create the conditions for a volta, between words, gestures, individuals, or societies.