Theatre
The Shroud Maker
2016 - Present
Written and Directed by: Ahmed Masoud
Designed by: Dima Karout
Performed by: Julia Tarnoky
Tours: London, Manchester, Liverpool, Plymouth, Dublin, Greenbelt Festival, Milton Keynes, Greenwich Theatre
Hajja Souad, an 80-year-old Palestinian woman living in the besieged Gaza Strip, knows about business. She has survived decades of wars and oppression by making shrouds for the dead. A compelling black comedy, The Shroud Maker delves deep into the intimate life of ordinary Palestinians to weave a highly distinctive path through Palestine’s turbulent past and present. Loosely based on a real-life character still living in Gaza, this one-woman comedy weaves comic fantasy and satire with true stories told first-hand to the writer and offers a vivid portrait of Palestinian life in Gaza underscored with gallows humour.
Obliterated
London, 9 August 2019
Written and Directed by: Ahmed Masoud
Designed by: Clio Capelle
Performed by: Maxine Peake
Obliterated was a theatrical experiment and an artistic protest where there as never a play or a production. I wanted to highlight what it felt like to have art and theatre taken away from the audience in protest of the bombing of the El Mishal Cultural Centre in Gaza.
Camouflage
London, 18 May 2017
Written and Directed by: Ahmed Masoud
Designed by Clio Capelle
Performed by: James El Sharawy
How does one survive under military occupation? How do young people see the situation? Do they try to resist it? Run away? Give up? What do they care about most? Four young Palestinians had the right ideas; they survived through staring danger in the face.
Camouflage is a new, daring play, which looks at the experience of a Palestinian refugee trying to flee the conflict in Syria, a young girl in Ramallah falling in love for the first time, a boy in Gaza trying to find a date and an aspiring actor in Haifa who has to come to terms with the unjust society he lives in.
The play is a dark comedy by acclaimed Palestinian writer Ahmed Masoud, which marks the 50th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation in Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank - Palestine, looking at the issues that really matter for young people. The play also commemorates the 69th anniversary of the Nakba.
Thaer is a thirteen-year-old boy on a boat in the waters between Turkey and Greece, something is troubling him and it is not the fact that he might drown any minute. Nibal is a seventeen-year-old girl finishing her SAT exams in an American-style school in Ramallah. She is constantly refusing marriage proposals from well-suiters, but she can’t resist one guy. Twenty-year-old Zeid is a taxi driver in Gaza who is using Tinder to try to find a date. Sami’s dream is to become a famous actor, he has to play a few roles in Haifa in order to build his CV and get known with Israeli established directors.
Camouflage is a one-person show, which presents a collage of theatrical genres taking the audience on a journey of what it means to live under occupation.
Go to Gaza, Drink the Sea
London and Edinburgh, 2009
Written & Directed by: Justin Butcher & Ahmed Masoud
Designed & Co-devised by: Jane Frere
Film design by: Zia Trench
Sound design by: Sebastian Frost
A vibrant and haunting theatre piece, Go to Gaza, Drink the Sea promises to transport the audience directly to Gaza to experience what happened during the recent Israeli military assault. It seeks to create a highly atmospheric fusion of moving personal testimonies with searing film images and soundscape bearing witness to the dignity, courage and suffering of the people of Gaza.
In the words of award-winning writer-director Justin Butcher, it is “A ritual. A requiem. An act of mourning. A space and a moment - set aside from people's busy email-driven, mobile phone buzzing, credit-crunch anxious daily lives - which people can enter, in which they can hear and see enacted the true stories of those in Gaza, simply staged, subtly supported with appropriate music and lighting.”
This theatre piece is an artistic collaboration between Justin Butcher ("Scaramouche Jones", "Madness Of George Dubya"), Palestinian writer-director-choreographer Ahmed Masoud (founder of Palestinian National Dance Company Al Zaytouna, director of "Ila Haifa"), internationally renowned artist and designer Jane Frere (Return Of The Soul - The Nakbah Project) and award-winning political journalist/film-maker Zia Trench (founder of Zeitgeist Theatre Company).
Performed by a Palestinian and British cast, it comes as a response to the human slaughter which led many onlookers to despair. The performance speaks not just of that despair, and the pain and suffering inflicted on ordinary people, but of the deeper strength and courage of those who were left to cope alone, away from the world’s cameras, remote from the help of aid agencies. In spite of the constraints, people inside Gaza have contributed photos, video footage and testimonies for this production. The performance also provides a unique opportunity for the audiences to record and send personal messages of solidarity.
Walaa (Loyalty)
London, 2015 and 2016
Written by: Ahmed Masoud
Directed by: Richard Shannon
Designed by: Clio Capelle
Performed by: James El Sharawy & Savvides
Where does loyalty lie? To country, family or political position?
Walaa is a play that explores these themes in the current Syrian crisis, described by many as 'the worst humanitarian conflict of our time'.
When Walaa, a middle-aged pharmacist and government supporter living on the outskirts of Damascus, returns to collect his things from his small chemist shop, he makes a shocking discovery and is suddenly faced with a terrible choice. There is little time before the entire neighbourhood is destroyed as fighting between the regime and the opposition intensifies.
Ahmed Masoud's new play delves deep into the effect of the civil war in Syria and how it is dividing people and families caught in the middle of a brutal conflict. The Syrian crisis has been one of the most tragic civil wars in recent history, with a huge number of causalities and a large percentage of the population either cut off from essential aid, displaced or imprisoned. The repercussions have been felt not only in neighbouring countries, which have been struggling with the mass waves of refugees but also globally. As a writer from the region, Ahmed Masoud joins forces with director Richard Shannon to create an artistic response that will bring the story of the Syrian crisis closer to the U.K. As well as knowledge of the region, Ahmed has just returned from Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan. The play will draw on the harrowing true stories he has been told.