I had the honor of directing the world premiere of The Alleviating Art: Lady Mary Montagu and Smallpox Inoculation by Robert Myers at the Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford. Starring Catherine Cusack, with live music by Tarik Beshir, we transformed the Basement Gallery at the museum into a living archive.

The play brings to life Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s daring eighteenth-century advocacy for variolation, a practice she encountered in the Ottoman Empire and later championed in Britain, despite fierce resistance from religious authorities and the male-dominated medical establishment. 

Picture: Catherine Cusack as Lady Mary, photo by Ian Wallman

I wrote and directed No Demand No Supply, a performance lecture that revisits Lebanon’s largest uncovered sex trafficking network (2016), centering the testimonies of Syrian refugee women who were trafficked within the ring. Using Alecky Blythe’s verbatim “recorded delivery” technique, I worked with real-life interviews alongside documentary materials to amplify survivors’ voices, while critically shifting focus toward the often-ignored role of the sex buyer.

Created in collaboration with the American University of Beirut and KAFA (Enough) Violence & Exploitation, the work draws on research into the demand side of prostitution. The piece premiered as part of the Urbicide II conference at AUB and went on to tour internationally, with presentations in Beirut, Athens, New York, and London. It was accompanied by public discussions with anti-trafficking advocates, including researcher Ghada Jabbour, whose study on Exploring the Demand for Prostitution in Lebanon became a cornerstone of the play.

Pictures from the performance at Zoukak Studio in Beirut in 2019 with performers: Nazha Harb, Serena Chami, Pascale Chneiss, Joyce Abou Jaoude. Assistant director: Nour Annan, Production Managers: Abdallah Kaddoura & Razan Abuismail, Light Design: Paul Seif

Scenography Consultant: Ghida Hashisho and Video Editor and Operator: Firas Haidar

I conceived and directed this virtual dramatic reading of personal reflections written by members of the Emergency and Anesthesiology Departments at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, who responded to the mass casualty incident of the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion. Presented live on Zoom in December 2020, the performance was followed by a talkback with frontline physicians and a clinical psychologist who responded on the night of the blast. The work was later curated and included in the Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP).

A collaboration between the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at AUB, the AUB Theater Initiative, and the Department of Emergency Medicine at AUBMC. Art Director: Ghida Hashisho. Performers: Dima Al Ansari, Nazha Harb, Wafa’a Celine Halawi, Sany Abdul Baki.

I was commissioned by ABAAD – Resource Center for Gender Equality, in collaboration with Leo Burnett, to conceive and direct an immersive performance based on seven recorded testimonies of survivors of sexual violence, gathered as part of the #ShameOnWho national campaign.

Presented at Zico House in Beirut, the work invited audiences to move freely through a series of rooms using a map, each staging a different testimony through varied performative forms. The stories unfolded in loops, allowing audiences to enter and exit at their own pace, in recognition of the emotional weight of the material.

Grounded in verbatim narratives, the piece aligned with the campaign’s core aim: to shift shame from the survivor to the perpetrator and to confront the culture of silence surrounding sexual violence. By offering an intimate, self-guided encounter, I aimed to create space for reflection, witnessing, and agency in how audiences engaged with these traumatic stories.

Production photos featuring: May Ogden Smith, Joseph Zeitouny, Lynn Hodeib, Anthony Sarrouh, and Hiba Sleiman. 

As part of the American University of Beirut’s 150th anniversary, I conceived and directed Moonadilat, a promenade performance presented by the Theatre Initiative in collaboration with the Center for Arts and Humanities (Mellon Grant). The work staged dramatic re-enactments of historical speeches by May Ziadeh, Anbara Salam, and Wadad Cortas, highlighting AUB’s legacy as a space for liberal thought, cultural production, and women’s empowerment.

Performed in Arabic and across multiple campus locations, the piece unfolded as a journey through Assembly Hall, West Hall, and Bathish Auditorium. Audiences were led from one site to another, encountering Julia Kassar, Raeda Taha, and Aliya Khalidi inhabiting these iconic figures and reactivating their words within the very spaces where they once resonated.

Production photos by the late Marwan Assaf.

I directed the world premiere of the English-language version of The Rape, Sa’dallah Wannous’s 1989 play set against the backdrop of the First Intifada. The work examines Israeli-Palestinian relations through a violent act whose psychological reverberations unfold across two households: one Palestinian, one Israeli.

Translated by Nada Saab and Robert Myers, and co-produced by the Theatre Initiaive at the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University, the production was staged at LAU’s Irwin Theater and accompanied by a daylong panel on Wannous.

Photos by Alexy Frangieh. Featuring Bshara Attala, Marcel Abu Shakra, May Ogden Smith, Sany Abdul Baki, Suha Shukair, Dima Matta and Vart Awkmian. Set design by Ghida Hashisho. Light design: Fuad Halawani. Costume design by Bashar Assaf. Sound design: Raffi Feghali. More here.

I co-directed From the Bottom of My Brain with Zeina Daccache, a performance developed through drama therapy sessions with residents of Fanar Psychiatric Hospital in South Lebanon, and produced by Catharsis – Lebanese Center for Drama Therapy.

The work was built from the participants’ own stories and performed by the residents themselves at Al-Madina Theatre. Rooted in a collaborative and therapeutic process, the piece created a rare space for self-expression, challenging stigma around mental health while foregrounding the voices and lived experiences of the performers.

The performance is available for viewing via this link.