Memories of his childhood in war-torn Baghdad, and later starting as an immigrant fourth-grader in Skokie, had been running through Martin Yousif Zebari’s mind for years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic paused the actor’s stage career that Zebari had free time to shape those thoughts into a play.

The result, “Layalina,” running at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre through April 2, taps into Zebari’s memories of being a young child in an Assyrian family in Iraq and Syria and then living in Skokie’s thriving Assyrian-American community. It also continues the love of theater he honed at Lincoln Junior High and Niles North High School, where he acted in shows and tried his hand at set building and costume design.

The first act of “Layalina” shows how the close-knit Ibrahim family lived in Baghdad, celebrating family joys but enduring the stresses of protests and war, and then making the difficult decision to send the children off to safety in a place they knew only the name of—Skokie, Illinois. Act 2 shows the same family years later, when the children who were kindergarten age in Act 1 are wrestling with challenges of young adulthood, and some are finding their LGBTQ identities to various degrees.

Zebari, who uses they and he pronouns, said that while writing the play, he worked with the fact that his memories of Iraq were from a young child’s perspective.

“I lived in the Middle East until age 9, so many of my memories are more environmental and atmospheric than they are direct memories,” said Zebari, who was born in 1993 and said their family lived in Baghdad until they were six, then they moved to Syria for three years before coming to the United States.

“The play is loosely based on my family’s story of immigration, but it’s definitely not autobiographical,” Zebari said. “It’s based on memories I have and conversations I grew up listening to and relationship dynamics I witnessed, so while not everything is true to my family, it all comes from a firsthand experience of growing up in a torn childhood, because of immigration.”

Even as a young child, Zebari felt the danger in Iraq, and got the sense that their family was wrestling with wanting to stay in the place where their ancestors were born versus leaving to keep their children safe.

The family finally left the summer after Zebari completed third grade, and in the fall, he started fourth grade at Thomas Edison Elementary School. He’s grown up speaking Assyrian, then learned Arabic to go to school in Syria, then had to learn yet another language once he arrived here.

Zebari came with his parents and three siblings, because two older brothers had already grown and gone out on their own. The family of six lived in a two-bedroom apartment.

“My dad was a successful business person and had some big deal degrees,” Zebari said. “My family was doing really well financially but then when you have to change your life…sometimes the money goes with it. We moved here and became a working class family.

“That’s another thing the play touches on is–what do you have left, what do you rely on when you don’t have the wealth and status you once had? How does that affect your new home and way you view the world?”

Zebari’s main responsibility at that age, of course, was to go to school. He remembers taking theater classes for his entire time at Niles North and participating in seven to nine shows a year there before going to Illinois State University and majoring in acting and costume design, then working as an actor.

Zebari has lived in several Chicago neighborhoods and moved to Los Angeles about a year ago, but is staying here through the run of “Layalina.”

Thinking back on his time in Skokie, the village’s cultural, religious, ethnic and racial diversity stands out for him. Most of his friends were Jewish, he said, and he remembers going to shabbat dinners and hanging out with their families.

“Because (Skokie) was my first experience in America, I grew up with a spoiled sense of diversity because i thought the rest of the world was that way,” Zebari said. “Then I learned other areas of the city were extremely segregated.

“I had a really beautiful rich childhood in America. I got to experience the country in a way most people don’t.”

If you go: Layalina, at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, Illinois. https://www.goodmantheatre.org/

William Schejbal can’t wait to make “yummy sandwiches,” and those who know him say they can’t wait to taste them and get a dose of his sunny disposition.

The 22-year-old was all smiles last week at the groundbreaking of Will’s Place, a café and general store expected to open in the spring at 7927 Lincoln Avenue, in downtown Skokie.

Will’s Place will employ adults with developmental disabilities, and Schejbal, who lives in Lincolnwood and has special needs, will work there, too.

The venture is backed by Schejbal’s family, including his mother, Joan Hallagan, and his aunt Cathy Maassen, who plans to retire from the Skokie Public Library when Will’s Place opens.

Schejbal’s cousin, Chicago-based chef Michael Pfeiffer, will create the “chef-driven, ingredient-focused breakfast and lunch menu,” and another cousin will run the cafe. The general store will feature pre-packaged food like sauces, fresh pasta and charcuterie boards, as well as baked goods, fresh flowers, and home goods made locally.

The family has created a nonprofit named Will’s Place and is fundraising via a GoFundMe page.

The space on Lincoln Avenue used to hold Mini Man Monkey Brains, a candy store where people on the autism spectrum could develop occupational skills.

The groundbreaking for Will’s Place on Oct. 25 drew a crowd of relatives, friends, elected officials, and representatives and clients of agencies who serve people with disabilities.

“If there is anything that gives a spark of brightness to the downtown in Skokie, it’s this kind of development,” Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen said.

The village of Skokie is supporting the new business with a commercial corridor storefront enhancement program grant of up to $41,098 for interior and exterior work. The village board approved the grant Oct. 18.

The groundbreaking was also attended by Lincolnwood Mayor Jesal Patel, who said William “had a presence about him” since he was a little boy.

Schejbal, who loves to cook, turned 22 this year, and there just aren’t enough employment options for adults with disabilities, Hallagan said. Will’s Place hopes to employ up to 30 people once business is in full swing, she said.

A total 41.1 million non-institutionalized adults have a disability, representing 12.7% of the population, but only 7.9 million of those ages 18 to 64 were employed, according to the 2019 U.S. Census American Community Survey.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky spoke at the event about the need to provide more employment opportunities for adults with special needs, whose public benefits largely end at age 22.

“We need to change the rules of the game. We can’t always rely on not-for-profit organizations,” Schakowsky said. “We have the richest country in the world at the richest point in history, and certainly we can find the funding and the way to make sure that all people can contribute.”

Schejbal, who was homecoming king in 2019 at Niles West High School, was adopted as a baby in Vietnam. Hallagan, his mother, said she later found out that he’d suffered a stroke at birth, caused by malnutrition, that had done neurological damage.

Despite his challenges, Schejbal learned to walk and use alternative means of communication —last week, he used the iPad app TouchChat, which turns typing into spoken words — while making friends wherever he went, his mother said.

“As a parent of a disabled child, I’ve spent years managing my expectations as it became clear that this world isn’t always designed for children like my son,” she wrote on the GoFundMe page. “The joy and love that William has brought into my family and his community is impossible to articulate or measure. My goal is to give back to William the happiness he has given all of us.”

Schejbal never fails to stand out, said Antoinette Cox, a youth mentor/tutor for the nonprofit Marillac St. Vincent Family Services, based in Chicago.

“He’s so sweet and well-mannered,” Cox said. “He’s always helpful, he’s always extending a hand. He is just so jolly and so happy. You’ll never forget him.”

Adam Rubinberg is hiking the circa 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, a daunting undertaking for most people, while managing two currently incurable diseases.

The 25-year-old from Skokie set off March 8 to hike the trail spanning California, Oregon and Washington, starting from the Mexican border and hiking north to the Canadian border. His mother Amy Rubinberg said Monday he may be returning home as soon as Sept. 25, partly due to wildfires in the West and partly due to a health setback.

He’s hiked between 12 and 25 miles per day, depending on the terrain and how he’s feeling, carrying a backpack weighing about 30 pounds, he said earlier in a telephone interview from a town near the trail where he stopped to get an IV infusion.

Rubinberg has Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease estimated to affect more than half a million people in the United States. He also has primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare disease that attacks the bile ducts. About 50,000 people in the United States have PSC, and the majority also have inflammatory bowel disease, according to information from UChicago Medicine, where Rubinberg is being treated.

Rubinberg takes 17 pills per day — most for PSC, some for mental health issues like ADHD and depression, he said – and battles occasional flare ups of back pain.

To treat his Crohn’s disease, he has to make a stop every four weeks to get an IV infusion. There is no FDA-approved treatment for PSC, which claimed the life of Chicago Bear great Walter Payton in 1999. However, Rubinberg is participating in a two-year clinical trial that started in October 2020 at UChicago Medicine to evaluate the efficacy of the medication cliofexor on PSC patients. Because it’s a double-blind study, neither Rubinberg nor his doctors know if he’s taking the medication or a placebo. Rubinberg said he feels much better, and his liver enzymes have been within the normal range since late last year.

“I’m very fortunate to be in such good hands,” he said during a telephone interview a few weeks ago from Dunsmuir, California, where he got an IV infusion.

“The fact that I am still out here, after all that’s happened to me — that alone says a lot,” he said. “Some days I want to quit, but I won’t do it unless I feel that way consistently for a week. Other times, I feel intensely happy and grateful.”

Rubinberg was diagnosed with both diseases in 2019 after he took a blood test at the insistence of his mother, who noticed his exhaustion and loose bowel movements. His elevated liver enzymes led to more tests before the final diagnoses.

Rubinberg is a “remarkable young man,” said Dr. David T. Rubin, co-director of the Digestive Diseases Center and section chief of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at UChicago Medicine.

Crohn’s disease is often diagnosed in young people, and about 10% of patients also have inflammation in their liver and bile ducts, Dr. Rubin said. It’s unknown if one causes the other, and treating one doesn’t guarantee the other goes away, he said.

The medical field has made “incredible progress” in treating Crohn’s disease, so that patients should expect to be in remission, he said. “They should be able to do anything and everything they’ve ever wanted in their life.”

Dr. Rubin also credited nurse associate Jaqueline Lopez, who went “above and beyond” to help Rubinberg in his quest to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Lopez found the company Home Infusion Options, which worked with Rubinberg’s family to ship his medication and hire traveling nurses who administer the IV infusion in the homes of “trail angels,” people who lend their homes to help hikers along the route.

Dr. Gautham Reddy, a liver disease expert at UChicago Medicine, is overseeing the clinical trial that will end in October. Rubinberg plans to enroll in an optional “open label” study extension, where he will be taking the medication, Reddy said.

“At the onset of trial, he was not feeling well. He was run down, fatigued. He just felt ‘blah,’” Reddy said. “Now, his general disposition is much sunnier. He seems like a happier, more energetic young person.”

“I am so happy to hear that he is super functional and able to do the things that he wants to do,” Reddy added. Still, he cautioned about making assumptions about the potential benefits of the medication until the clinical trial data is available.

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail had been Rubinberg’s dream since 2018, Rubinberg said, crediting his parents and medical team with managing the complex logistics.

In preparation, he hiked Vermont’s 273-mile “Long Trail” last September. That’s where he earned the trail nickname “Bard,” after he rewrote the lyrics to Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” as an ode to that trail, he explained.

To help finance his current hike, Rubinberg took a weeklong break in July to work at a golf tournament in South Lake Tahoe, California.

The best part of the journey has been meeting “amazing people,” said Rubinberg, who’s written entries in a blog.

“Hikers are some of the nicest people you’ll meet. The most trusting, most trustworthy people,” he said. “With the trail angels and the trail community out here, it’s one of the best communities of people you’ll ever meet.”

The hard part is that, because he has to stop every four weeks, he also has to separate from hikers he meets along the way, he said.

“Being alone on this trail is a whole mental challenge, because the only person to motivate you is yourself,” he said. “It’s kind of redefined for me what my limit is. Physically and mentally, it’s pushed me to, and beyond, my limits.”

There also have been major glitches, like having to be medically evacuated, twice: once in May due to altitude sickness on Mount Whitney, California, and once in July, when he had a 102- degree fever and was diagnosed with COVID-19. He spent a few days in isolation at a hotel in South Lake Tahoe, where his mother was able to send him groceries.

“Thank God for modern technology,” Amy Rubinberg said.

Last week, nausea and throat issues forced him to backtrack 10 miles to Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, where he had to get transportation to the nearest medical center for blood work his doctor ordered, Amy Rubinberg said. He’s taking an antibiotic because, she said, PSC can lead to infections in the liver that can in turn lead to serious consequences.

Rubinberg also has a propensity for losing stuff, like his satellite messenger, a device for communicating with the world beyond the trail. He thinks he dropped it at a park after a sprinkler unexpectedly went off, he said, laughing. That was less funny to his parents, who rushed to buy him a new one and ship it to his next IV infusion destination while enduring the stress of not knowing where he was for a few days.

Amy Rubinberg said she worries about her son constantly, but she and her husband are both very proud of him and his determination.

“With all of these trials and tribulations, there are a lot of things that could have made someone else give up and quit. But he kept persevering and kept going,” his mother said.

His father, Robert Rubinberg, agreed. “Even before he was diagnosed, it certainly seemed like a huge dream (to hike the Pacific Crest Trail),” he said. “He’s very driven. He’s wanted to do this for a long time, and he has been able to push himself.”

Rubinberg worked at REI’s store in Northbrook for about five months before he set off on his hike in March. He hopes to work there again and perhaps apply to become one of the company’s outdoor guides, he said.

He encourages everyone, regardless of their physical condition or ability, to go hiking.

“Doing any distance, on any trail, in my mind is impressive,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you do the whole thing or not. Just getting yourself out there and enjoy nature — it’s amazing what it can do for you.”