Arab Nights

We are commissioning six writers from across the UK, Middle East & North Africa to write short plays (from five to twenty minutes) in response to the events of the Arab Revolutions through the framing device of the 'Arabian Nights'. These will then be woven into a full-length play with text, music and puppetry, simultaneously exploring and celebrating the freedom of expression of those involved and also interrogating the transformative power of speech and story to express the ideas and themes currently in ferment across the Arab world. This production will run for four weeks at a leading off-west end London venue in Autumn 2012, followed by two weeks of regional touring to the North of England and West Midlands.

The writers already attached to the project include Hassan Abdulrazzak (young Iraqi playwright), Ghalia Kabbani (Syrian journalist and novelist), Raja Shehadeh (Palestinian Orwell prize winning author) and a young Iranian playwright (who has to write anonymously for political reasons). The production will be dramaturgically woven together and directed by Poppy Burton-Morgan and designed by William Reynolds, with original music composed by award-winning young Lebanese composer Bushra El Turk.

The events of Spring 2011 onwards had a huge and immediate impact across the world – and the events themselves are still happening and unfolding every day, just as their impact is continuing to be felt here and across the world. We have never worked on a piece of theatre that feels so contemporary, so current - the urgency is quite overwhelming. This is a really exciting project for us creatively, but more than that we feel a real responsibility to use this as a platform for freedom of expression and telling some stories that aren't currently being heard in the UK – In the UK we can tell our stories, and tell them freely, so we feel very strongly that we have a responsibility to use that freedom to give voice to the unheard stories across the world as well. So please help us raise £3000 towards commissioning our international writers - which we have discovered, alas, is quite a tricky thing to fund-raise for in this country, through regular fund-raising channels - and let's make this fantastic idea into a reality.

Thank you in advance!!!

For more information on Metta Theatre go to our website - www.mettatheatre.co.uk

Metta Theatre Limited, registered office: 66 Lancaster Court, Fulham Road, London SW6 5TA. Registered Charity Number 1140190, registered Company Number 07137926. Registered in England and Wales.