Seyben has 20+ years of experience working as a scholar and artist in Türkiye, Europe, and the US. She is currently teaching theater at the College of Southern Idaho. She previously served as the assistant professor of theater at Istanbul University, Istanbul University, and Bennington College. She holds a BA in Playwriting (Bennington College), an MA in Visual Communication Design (Istanbul Bilgi University), and a PhD in Theater Criticism and Dramaturgy (Istanbul University).

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She published two monographs, Struggle and Survival under Authoritarianism in Turkey: Theatre under Threat (Lexington Books, 2020), and Theater and Multimedia (Habitus Kitap, 2016). Presenting an anti-colonial reading of Turkish theater, Struggle and Survival under Authoritarianism in Turkey, is one of the few books on Turkish theater in English and has been reviewed in Theater Survey. She co-edited two conference proceedings books on theatre education. She published papers on Turkish theater in the acclaimed, TDR, Third Text, and The International Journal of Cultural Policy.

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As a creative writer, she created The American Letter which had its first staged reading by The Ephemerates Theater at the Twin Falls Public Library in 2023. Mid-America Theater Conference selected The American Letter to Pitch-Your-Play-Session during its 2024 Playwriting Symposium. Seyben is currently working on A Beauty Mark, an autobiographical account of her exile from Türkiye due to signing a petition. Her third play in English is a ten-minute titled Our Founding Father. She is translating her two Turkish plays, The Wall, and Mother State into English. Seyben’s creative nonfiction essays have frequently appeared in Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine and The RavensPerch. She is currently working on publishing Rivermaid, a collection of personal essays.

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Recent college directing credits include Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, Fefu and Her Friends by María Irene Fornés, and Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with music and lyrics by Roger Miller, and a book by William Hauptman. She also directed Jacyln Backhaus’ You on the Moors Now, Samuel D Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in a new adaptation by Zinnie Harris as well as Sophocles’ Oedipus in a new version by Ellen McLaughlin at the College of Southern Idaho. Most of these plays were reviewed and recommended by the local news channel, KMVT, and the local paper, Times-News.

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On the administrative side, she served as the chair of Management of Performing Arts and Performing Arts at Istanbul Bilgi University. She is currently working as a board member of Magic Valley Arts Council. Seyben has recently become a member-at-large of the Middle Eastern Theater Focus Group in ATHE that is committed to highlighting the scholarly and artistic output of Middle Eastern theater-makers and academics in the US and beyond.

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Upcoming academic papers include “Survival of the Weakest" in the volume, Exiled Scholars: Refugees or Intellectuals (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), and “Absence as Presence: Toward Multilingual Dramaturgy in Dream American and THE FRANCA RAME PROJECT” in another volume titled Theater of Resilience. The College of Southern Idaho  staged her play, The American Letter, in Fall 2024. She is collaborating with a Spanish director to have A Beauty Mark produced in Barcelona. Seyben will be directing American Hero by Bess Wohl in the College of Southern Idaho 2024-25 Season.