Masrah Ensemble

Masrah Ensemble is a nonprofit theatre collective and organization that aims to reconfigure audiences and to encourage transcendent, riveting theatre. The Ensemble also aims to cultivate new talent from the margins, to champion artistic and cultural exchange, and to challenge prevailing ideas of what theatre should be, where it should take place, and to whom it belongs. Masrah Ensemble pursues its mission by making and developing formal and informal performances (usually presented free of charge), by conceiving and implementing projects embedded in and emerging from activist networks and spaces, and by initiating radical education initiatives that aspire to artistic excellence. Furthermore, our strategies include prioritizing translation and literacy, creating new axes of exchange and unprecedented collaborations, and fostering research and criticism of theatre that is engaged with the public sphere, with the life of the street, with both contemporary and historical narratives. Highlights of our work since inception include a three-month Amharic-Arabic-English theatre festival with audiences and artists of socio-economic diversity in performances of works-in-progress in Beirut and New York. Last year, we also produced a two-month playwright residency program to develop new Arabic drama (first initiative of its kind in the Middle East) in collaboration with theatre makers in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. In 2013, we presented an Arabic-English production of Mud (1982) by María Irene Fornés in a salvaged, derelict Ottoman mansion, presenting more than a dozen free performances to audiences of migrant workers and standard Beirut theatregoers. We have conducted workshops with preteen Syrian refugees in Lebanon and college students in the United States and performed staged readings of plays in Arabic, English, French, and Amharic. The organization launched in 2012 with an international educational and artistic theatre series around the book Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre (Pluto Press) in Lebanon, United States, The Netherlands, and Australia. ** Le Masrah Ensemble est une association à but non lucratif et compagnie de théâtre qui crée des projets et effectue des recherches sur le théâtre, avec une attention particulière à la scène arabe. Basé à Beyrouth, l’Ensemble a pour objet de reconfigurer les publics et de favoriser le développement d’un théâtre à la fois accrocheur et transcendant. Depuis 2009 la compagnie monte des spectacles, cultive des jeunes talents et encourage les échanges artistiques et culturels. ** إن مسرح انسمبل هو جمعية ثقافية، وفنية، وتربوية، واجتماعية لا تبغي الربح تعمل في إطار المسرح وتقوم بشكل خاص على إجراء البحوث والنقد المسرحي وكافة النشاطات والمشاريع المتعلقة بالمسرح إضافة الى تنظيم المسارح والعروض وتعزيز دورها مع التركيز على المسرح العربي. تهدف الجمعية إلى إعادة هيكلة قاعدة الجماهير وتشجيع المسرح المشوّق والممتع.