Shakespeare in Arabic: A night of theatre and music

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This event will explore Arabic adaptation of Western theatre classics from Shakespeare to Brecht, culminating in a showcase of a bilingual Arabic-English adaptation of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.

British theater producer Georgina Van Welie, along with Lebanese theater makers Lucian Bourjeilly and Caroline Hatem, will discuss their experiences of Arabic adaptations of Western classics and creating work both in the region and internationally.

The discussion will be followed by an extract from Georgina Van Welie’s Arabic/English adaptation in development of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, translated by Ghareeb Iskander, with video by Syrian artist Bissane Al Charif.

A Lebanese wine and book pairing will be offered after the event.

Originally scheduled to take place at Aaliya’s Books in Beirut in association with the American University of Beirut, the event was moved due to the ongoing political situation in Lebanon. We are deeply grateful to the Columbia Paris Global Center for hosting the event in Paris. 

Showcase “TROILUS AND CRESSIDA”

Director/Adaptor : Georgina Van WelieProducer: Mariam TellArabic translation: Ghareeb IskanderSet design and Video: Bissane Al CharifPerformers and musicians to be announced

Speakers

Lucien Bourjeily is an Emmy-nominated writer and director of both theater and film. He is a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA in Filmmaking from the Loyola Marymount University in LosAngeles. He is currently the interim co-director of the American University of Beirut’s Theater Initiative and is actively involved in AUB’s theater program as Artist in Residence.

He brought his progressive approach to theater to London’s LIFT Festival in 2012 with his hard-hitting immersive play 66 Minutes in Damascus, which was selected by the Huffington Post as one of the "10 plays in the world that rethink the stage." For his activism against censorship in the arts in Lebanon, he was nominated for the 2014 "Freedom of Expression" award by Index on Censorship in London. In 2014, he wrote and directed Vanishing State at the Battersea Arts Centre in London as part of the LIFT festival. The play involves the audience in drafting the Middle East’s borders alongside French and English diplomats (Sykes and Picot) at the end of World War I—a secret agreement whose consequences are still strongly felt throughout the Levant region today. Just months after the civil strife in Tripoli ended, in the spring of 2015, he wrote Love and War on the Rooftop. Directed by him, the play was performed by ex-fighters from the warring neighborhoods of Beb El Tebbeneh and Jabal Mohsen. His work in both theater and film has traveled the global festival circuit and earned him numerous awards, including the 2017 Dubai International Film Festival Jury Prize for his debut feature film Heaven Without People. Most recently, he adapted Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (2024), staging it as an immersive promenade experience in various locations within AUB’s historic campus in Beirut.

Caroline Hatem is a theatre director, choreographer, and actress. She holds a Masters in Philosophy from Paris 8 and has specialized in dance and theatre in the United States (University of Arizona, Lee Strasberg), France (RIDC), and Lebanon. She is co-founder and president of YAZAN and has initiated the Network for Cultural Outreach, an EU-funded project aiming at decentralising performing arts in Lebanon.

Apart from a career as a dancer and an actor, she created her first choreographies and performances in dance with How They Thought a Table is a Table (2008), The Joy Series (2009), JoKaRi (2009), Solitude (2010), and Le Critère de Griffith (Beirut, 2015). Her latest choreographic work includes Together We Walk, an immersive installation combined with live performance, produced by Yaraqa for Dubai 2020. Her first theatre work, Al Beyt, by Arzé Khodr, has toured in Lebanon and Tunis (Carthage Theatre Festival) and won Best Actress and Best Script at the first edition of the Lebanese National Theatre Festival (2018). Her second work, Al Zifaf, an adaptation of Brecht’s A Respectable Wedding, represented Germany at the European Theatre Festival in Beirut in 2019. She adapted and directed in 2022 The Just Assassins by Albert Camus (Les Justes), in Lebanese dialect, which toured in Lebanon, namely at the Bacchus Temple in Baalbeck in 2022. Her fourth work, TRANSIT TRIPOLI, a free adaptation of Anna Seghers’ novel Transit, premiered at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, in partnership with the Schaubühne Theatre. It was performed at the superb Oscar Niemeyer’s Rachid Karame International Fair in Tripoli, and has since toured worldwide: Beirut, Cairo (D-Caf), Tunis (JTC), London (Shubbak Festival)...

Caroline taught for over five years dance and movement for actors at the Lebanese University in Beirut, and still teaches dance at the Art & Movement Dance School in Jal el Dib (Lebanon). Caroline is a proud Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics fellow (2021-2023) and an International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) Global Fellow (2021-2022).

Georgina Van Welie, theatre producer, adaptor, and dramaturge, began her career at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK after graduating from Cambridge University. She directed three shows for their Fringe Festival before founding her own company, Inigo Productions. From 2002 to 2013, she co-founded Sabab Theatre, producing bilingual Arabic/English theatre productions in collaboration with prestigious performing-arts organizations including: The Kennedy Center, BAM New York, Arts Emerson (USA); The Royal Shakespeare Company, Riverside Studios, Gate Theatre, Shubbak Festival (UK); Le Comédie Française, Bouffes du Nord (France), The Holland Festival, Warsaw Festival, Attiki Festival (Greece); The Tokyo International Arts Festival, Seoul Performing Arts Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Sydney Festival; Dar al Athar Al Islamiyyah (Kuwait), Al Ain Festival, Sharjah Biennale, Cairo International Theatre Festival, and Le Tournesol Theatre (Beirut). She is currently working on a bilingual Arabic-English adaptation of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, as part of a new “Problem” Shakespeare Trilogy.

Georgina has also worked as a storyliner, script editor, and co-writer on a number of award-winning TV shows and films with Channel 4, Pearson Television (UK), and most recently with Linked Productions on Whose Country (dir. Siam Mohammed). She is also a regular contributor to The Markaz Review.

Organizers

The , established at Reid Hall in 2010, is one of Columbia University’s eleven global centers. It aims to promote research, teaching, and transnational collaboration. Through its scholarly and cultural programming, its Atelier podcast, and its civic engagement initiatives, the Paris Global Center strengthens Columbia University’s connections in France and internationally while providing a platform for intellectual exploration of social and environmental issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 

brings together major global initiatives from across the university including the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and Undergraduate Global Engagement.

Founded in 1866, the American University of Beirut is a teaching-centered research university based on the American liberal arts model of higher education. AUB has over 8,000 students and 800 faculty members. The University encourages freedom of thought and expression and seeks to graduate men and women committed to creative and critical thinking, lifelong learning, personal integrity, civic responsibility, and leadership.

Venue

Nestled in the Montparnasse district, Reid Hall hosts several Columbia University initiatives: the Columbia Global Paris Center, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, the Columbia Undergraduate Programs, the  M.A. in History and Literature, and the GSAPP Shape of Two Cities Program. This unique combination of resources is enhanced by our global network whose mission is to expand the University's engagement with the world through educational programs, research initiatives, regional partnerships, and public events.

This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of the Columbia Global Paris Center or its affiliates.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Reid Hall, 4 Rue de Chevreuse, Paris, France