Khaberni - The Arab Theater Festival honors 17 Egyptian theater artists, including actor and director Mohamed Sobhi, in its sixteenth session which starts next week in Cairo.
The General Secretary of the Arab Theater Authority, Ismail Abdullah, announced at a press conference on Monday that the new session will honor actress Ferdous Abdel Hamid, actor Ahmed Bedier, director Nasser Abdel Moneim, director Essam El-Sayed, critic Abdel Razzaq Hussein, critic Abla El-Ruweini, and director Mourad Munir.
Also, writer Fatma Al-Maadoul, set designer Noha Barada, actress Samira Mohsen, writer Bahig Ismail, critic Osama Abu Talib, director Abbas Ahmed, professor of theater at Alexandria University, Abu El-Hassan Salam, professor of drama and criticism at the Academy of Arts, Mohamed Sheiha, and professor of drama and theater criticism Jalal Hafez.
He added that the festival will also honor five organizations and institutions: (The Egyptian Society for Theater Amateurs) founded in 1992, (The Church Theater), the independent group (Al-Warsha), (The Artistic Creativity Center) affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, and (Theater Clubs in Popular Culture).
The festival program, which takes place from January 10 to 16 (January), includes 15 theater performances, 14 of which are part of the competitive track competing for the Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi Award after the withdrawal of the Bejaia Theater group from Algeria, in addition to a performance from Egypt in the non-competitive track.
Participating shows came from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE, and Qatar.
The program also includes an intellectual seminar on January 11 and 12 (January) titled (Towards a scientific foundation for the Arab theater criticism project) with the participation of 12 researchers from Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Iraq, in addition to organizing six training workshops in Ismailia, Alexandria, and Aswan.
The Arab Theater Authority, headquartered in Sharjah Emirate, organizes the festival in a different Arab city each year, and Cairo has hosted it in 2009 and 2019.
Following the festival, the Arab Theater Authority organizes the fifth session (The Arab Forum for Puppet Arts and Adjacent Arts) in Cairo with 10 performances in the period from January 21 to 23 (January).
