Theatre in Palestine: Creative Process, Political and Cultural Identity Workshop

Led by Gary M. English and Dr. Samer Al-Saber

Stage director and designer Gary M. English and theatre historian and director Dr. Samer Al-Saber discuss their experiences as theatre artists in the West Bank. They will focus on the particular issues encountered when educating and training actors and crafting works of theatre in an active conflict zone and military occupation and reflect upon the cultural, political and psychological landscape of the region. They will address the concept of theatre as political resistance, the ways in which it shapes cultural identity and its significance in community development. 

Gary English is a stage director and designer with credits that include over 120 productions at many of America's theatres including The Pittsburgh Public Theatre, The San Francisco Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, George St. Playhouse, North Shore Music Theatre and The Berkshire Theatre Festival, among others. He has taught at the University of Connecticut (UCONN) for 25 years and served as the head of the Department of Dramatic Arts and founding artistic director for Connecticut Repertory Theatre for 15 years. He currently teaches stage directing and Theatre and Human Rights. English has been traveling to Palestine regularly since 2010. From May of 2012 through June of 2013, and in the aftermath of the murder of co-founder Juliano Mer Khamis, he served as artistic director of The Freedom Theatre (TFT) in the Jenin Refugee Camp, West Bank, Palestine. In collaboration with TFT resident artists, Nabil AlRaee and Michaela Miranda, he worked to revive and develop the artistic infrastructure, consulted on management development and produced several new productions and international tours, including The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona which was performed in Arabic in Jenin and throughout the West Bank. The production also toured in English internationally to theatre festivals in Brazil, The United States, Norway, Sweden, India and, most recently, France. English continues to serve as an artistic associate and consultant at TFT. 

B.F.A., University of Arizona (1974)
M.F.A., Northwestern University (1979) 

After a two-year Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Davidson College, Samer Al-Saber joined the faculty at Florida State University's School of Theatre in the fall of 2015. He has taught outside the western canon in courses such as Cultural Representations of the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Performing Arabs and Others and Staging Islam and American Politics. His teaching, practice and scholarship focus on the intersection of cultural production and political conflict in the Middle East. At Florida State, he teaches the World Theatre History series and graduate courses in history, theory and criticism. Al-Saber's manuscript is tentatively entitled after his dissertation, Permission to Perform: Palestinian Theatre in Jerusalem (1967-1993). As a practitioner, in recent years, he directed plays at Davidson College in North Carolina, Al-Rowwad Theatre in Bethlehem and Al-Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. He also participated as a creative artist in the 7arakat Project in Sydney, Australia where Palestinian and Australian artists  worked with documentary sources and explored avenues of performance through dance, theatre, movement, voice and multimedia. 

B.A. in Theatre, University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) 
M.F.A. in Directing, University of Calgary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) 
Ph.D. in Theatre History, Theory and Criticism, University of Washington (Seattle, Washington)

Headline photo: Nabil AlRaee