Alemtsehay has been an actress and a poet all her life. When she came to the United States, she worked in various roles to support her family, but she never stopped doing What she loves. She says “Art is an addiction to me. I can’t live without it. If I were given a second chance to live in this world, I would choose the same profession and be the same Alemtsehay.”
Her teachers recognized her interest and talent for the arts at a young age. When she was 13, her Amharic teacher read a poem she had written aloud to the class, making her an example for others. The same year, her music teacher, Melaku Ashagre, who recruited students for theatre tours he organized, gave her the first chance to act on stage at the Hager Fiker Theatre, and joined an amateur club that was based there. Her interest in the theatre was controversial in her family. When her father returned from a travel from Greece, he made it very clear that he wanted her to be first in her class and to become a doctor or a lawyer, he threatened to break her leg or even kill her if he saw her on stage. But Alem’s grandmother allowed her to act, provided she promised to finish School and not to appear on public posters or flyers. It wasn’t easy to hide her acting from her father, since she acted publicly. She always had understudies just in case he showed up.
After Alem finished high school at 18, she was one of 12 selected to join the new two-year training program headed by the phenomenal Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin at the National Theatre. A popular singer, Asnakech Worku, served as her professional idol. The training and later experience she received on stage from working with giant actors of the Ethiopian stage, with top playwrights and directors helped refine her own talent. After the training, she became a senior actress employed by the National Theatre and continued to act and write for the next 17 years. She acted in Ethiopian plays, as well as classical plays, and was thrilled to be able to play some world class theatre roles as Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Ophelia in Hamlet, and Maria in The General Inspector by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. Her father finally came to see her playing Ophelia in Hamlet after she has been acting for 14 years, and revealed he was proud of her profession after all.
In high school, she had become involved in the student movement opposing the imperial regime. In the 11th grade, she entered a writing competition open to all high School students in the city and represented her School, Medhane Alem (Holy Savior) School. The Other competitors introduced themselves as students from schools named after members of the royal family, in such a way as to honor the ruling elite. When it was her turn, she said, “…the One and only one, who sees all human beings as equal, no matter where they Come from, what background they have, or where they were born. He has all the power, but he is not arrogant with His power and He does not abuse it. My school is named after the Almighty, Medhane Alem (Savior of the World).” Her teachers were shocked, but the audience roared with applause; the poem she read also criticized the current imperial regime. She won the competition. Alem was also elected Vice President of her high School’s student association and had the chance to network with other high School and university student leaders, beginning her lifelong involvement in activism for democracy and women’s rights. She was briefly jailed by the imperial government but was quickly rescued by a neighbour of her grandmother. Her father and Alem both agreed on the issue of opposing the regime.
When the emperor was overthrown by the new Derg military regime, she was appointed to The Ethiopian Women coordinating committee (later the Revolutionary Ethiopian Women’s Association) as a representative of the national theater; its mandate was to organize women and raise their consciousness about their rights and freedoms in the new socialist state. At the time she was secretly a Sympathizer With the opposition group, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP). Around that time, the artists at the National Theater held a demonstration to press their demands for pension benefits and the right to form a union. When some EPRP members began to pass out leaflets opposing the military regime, the police opened fire and 11 artists Were arrested and jailed. Although she wasn’t there because her grandmother had died that day, she was afraid to return to work because Colleagues suspected her affiliation with the opposition. She fled her home and hid with relatives for six months, returning to ask for a pardon along with the 11 who were jailed. They resumed work.
Following, Alem worked for the Socialist programs of the government, especially on behalf of women and children. She became involved with Amba, the Ziway Children’s Village for Orphans of War victims, founding and running an arts program for the children, where she Volunteered every other Weekend until 1991. She also founded and headed the Children’s Theatre department, based on a model she visited in East Germany, and ran it for seven years under the Ministry of Culture. She co-founded the Ethiopian Actors’ Association, Serving as chair for 14 years. Artists lobbied successfully to improve actors’ pay. Another high point was a week-long anti-AIDS festival in Addis Ababa in the mid-1980s, at a time when talking about Sex and Sexually transmitted diseases was a taboo. Many prominent artists performed, coordinators distributed Condoms to the audience inside match boxes with the motto “Play it safe” and had some fun with blowing them up like balloons inside the stadium to overcome the embarrassment people had about condoms at the time.
Alem continued to act and write, both plays and poems. She did public relations for the National Theater, as well as heading the program and production area. Although the military government severely censored artists work, she and friends used every possible means to promote artistic creativity in the country. Right after her first full length play Demachin (Our Blood) (co-written by her first husband Tadesse Worku, Sibhat Tessema, and herself), she wrote a play called The Door that was somewhat critical of the government. After five shows at the Ras Theatre, the Minister of Culture called her, demanding that she makes changes. When she refused, the play was banned.
When the military regime was overthrown by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1991, she left with her two children (Tewled Tadesse and Aynalem Dejene) for the U.S. Since she was closely associated with the deposed regime, her husband Dejene Geremew followed six months later. She worked various types of jobs to make ends meet, but her heart was still with the arts. In 2000, she founded and became managing director of the Tayitu Cultural Center in Washington DC, which has hosted Ethiopian cultural events for the last 13 years with very little outside funding. The center produced more than 35 plays and held more than 150 poetry nights. Members travel to 17 different states and Europe each year, performing mainly to Ethiopian diaspora communities; it also organizes Workshops to train young professionals. Poetry has always been a powerful influence in Ethiopian Culture and spiritual life. The center’s programs help keep Ethiopian Culture alive for all in the diaspora and connects it to the homeland and its future hopes. Recently, the center opened the first Ethiopian Amharic library in Washington DC. One of Alem’s greatest dreams is to see a statue of Empress Taitu erected in Addis Ababa, the city where the Empress was the impetus for founding.
Alem says, “Although Ethiopia is a land of many women rulers and queens, it’s never been easy to be a Woman in Ethiopia or among Ethiopians. Women have to Work twice as hard for their jobs, for their pay, for promotions, and for respect to their ideas. It’s impossible to talk in the Company of men about women’s rights or the unfair treatment women receive at work, at home, and in the Society in general. But for me, none of the obstacles I ever faced were as strong as my vision or the love I have for my profession.” People call her the “Iron Lady”- and she acknowledges that name, because she considers herself unbreakable, never tiring of the work that she loves.
For young women and girls, her thoughts are simple: “Have faith, dream high, be strong and never quit!”