Condensed Biography
Bilal is a professional writer and stage performer, working primarily in the Chicago area since 2000. His body of written work includes fiction, poetry, stage plays, audio drama, essays, and song lyrics.
From 2004 to 2016 he was an ensemble member of The Neo-Futurists, an internationally acclaimed performance troupe, best known for producing the long-running shows Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind and The Infinite Wrench. From 2012 to 2015 he also served as one of the company's Artistic Directors. With The Neo-Futurists, he has written hundreds of short performance pieces, and functioned as creator or collaborator on the company's full-length productions Contraption, A Very Neo-Futurist Christmas Carol, CRISIS: A Musical Game Show, The Sovereign Statement, Redletter, and The Food Show. He has also written plays for other Chicago companies, including New Leaf Theatre, The Inconvenience, and Broken Nose Theatre; and his work has also been performed in several locations throughout the United States and Europe. He writes and performs regularly in Chicago's burgeoning Live Lit scene, including appearances at The Paper Machete and WRITE CLUB. Since 2017, he has been an ensemble member at Lifeline Theatre, which produced his original adaptation of The Man Who Was Thursday. Bilal has been nominated for four Joseph Jefferson Awards (Chicago's regional award for excellence in theater), including two nominations for Best New Work and two acting nominations. He was a 2004 recipient of a Fellowship in Scriptworks from the Illinois Arts Council, and won the Best Play Award from Eclectic Company Theatre's (Los Angeles, CA) Hurricane Season festival.
In the audio fiction realm, Bilal has been a lead scriptwriter for all five seasons of the BBC Award-winning show Unwell, A Midwestern Gothic Mystery and the ALA Award-winning SEL-focused show The Imagine Neighborhood. He adapted Jamyang Norbu's novel The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes into a multi-part audio production for Book-It Repertory in Seattle, and several Edgar Allan Poe short stories for Lifeline's Tales of Poe, both of which were released during the 2020 pandemic. He has also written two immersive audio gaming experiences for UK fitness-app producers Six to Start, titled Spellcast and Spellcast 2: The Deviled Ham. In late 2023, he will also be one of the writers responsible for the first wave of stories in Marvel Move, a collaboration between Six to Start and Marvel Comics.
Bilal currently lives in Evanston with his wife, son, and dog. He occasionally posts his thoughts at his blog.
From 2004 to 2016 he was an ensemble member of The Neo-Futurists, an internationally acclaimed performance troupe, best known for producing the long-running shows Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind and The Infinite Wrench. From 2012 to 2015 he also served as one of the company's Artistic Directors. With The Neo-Futurists, he has written hundreds of short performance pieces, and functioned as creator or collaborator on the company's full-length productions Contraption, A Very Neo-Futurist Christmas Carol, CRISIS: A Musical Game Show, The Sovereign Statement, Redletter, and The Food Show. He has also written plays for other Chicago companies, including New Leaf Theatre, The Inconvenience, and Broken Nose Theatre; and his work has also been performed in several locations throughout the United States and Europe. He writes and performs regularly in Chicago's burgeoning Live Lit scene, including appearances at The Paper Machete and WRITE CLUB. Since 2017, he has been an ensemble member at Lifeline Theatre, which produced his original adaptation of The Man Who Was Thursday. Bilal has been nominated for four Joseph Jefferson Awards (Chicago's regional award for excellence in theater), including two nominations for Best New Work and two acting nominations. He was a 2004 recipient of a Fellowship in Scriptworks from the Illinois Arts Council, and won the Best Play Award from Eclectic Company Theatre's (Los Angeles, CA) Hurricane Season festival.
In the audio fiction realm, Bilal has been a lead scriptwriter for all five seasons of the BBC Award-winning show Unwell, A Midwestern Gothic Mystery and the ALA Award-winning SEL-focused show The Imagine Neighborhood. He adapted Jamyang Norbu's novel The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes into a multi-part audio production for Book-It Repertory in Seattle, and several Edgar Allan Poe short stories for Lifeline's Tales of Poe, both of which were released during the 2020 pandemic. He has also written two immersive audio gaming experiences for UK fitness-app producers Six to Start, titled Spellcast and Spellcast 2: The Deviled Ham. In late 2023, he will also be one of the writers responsible for the first wave of stories in Marvel Move, a collaboration between Six to Start and Marvel Comics.
Bilal currently lives in Evanston with his wife, son, and dog. He occasionally posts his thoughts at his blog.