Queens of Syria (the documentary) tells the story of fifty women from Syria, all forced into exile in Jordan,who came together in Autumn 2013 to create and perform their own version of the Trojan Women, Euripides’ timeless Ancient Greek tragedy about the plight of women in war. Not one of them had ever acted before.
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What followed was an extraordinary moment of cross-cultural contact across millennia, in which women born in 20th century Syria found a blazingly vivid mirror of their own experiences in the stories of a queen, princesses and ordinary women like them, uprooted, enslaved,and bereaved by the Trojan War.
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It was a process charged with emotion and fraught with challenges, as long buried issues came to the surface, and at times the project itself hung in the balance.
Yasmin Fedda’s subtly crafted and beautifully shot film explores the difficult choices the women have to make about appearing on stage, and the close relationships they form within the group as they explore with each other their experiences. It shows their bravery and determination that their stories should be told to the world.
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The original production was invited to go on tour in the US and Switzerland, courtesy of Georgetown University in Washington DC, and Columbia University in New York, but sadly the casts visas were denied, so the tour was 'virtual' since unfortunately our original cast were unable to travel to the US as their visas were rejected. Listen here to the story on NPR. After we showed the trailer and some short clips from the documentary footage from 'Queens Of Syria', The inspirational cast of The Trojan Women received a standing ovation from a visibly moved Georgetown audience.Under the expert moderation and translation of Syrian broadcaster Honey Al Sayed, the cast, director and audience were able to have a discussion about the project, sharing experiences of participating in and of watching some of the performance. Despite thousands of miles and visa denials, the team at Georgetown enabled our cast to tell their stories and ask their questions, and gave the Washington audience a flavour of what (we hope!) is to come if visas are granted and a live performance is made possible.
You can discover more about the event in a report by Peter Marks in the Washington Post and also in a Foreign Policy article by Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, co-founder of the Georgetown Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics.
Geneva
The Talberg Institute also hosted nine of the cast members to mount an abridged version of The Trojan Women at CERN in Switzerland.
The original production was invited to go on tour in the US and Switzerland, courtesy of Georgetown University in Washington DC, and Columbia University in New York, but sadly the casts visas were denied, so the tour was 'virtual' since unfortunately our original cast were unable to travel to the US as their visas were rejected. Listen here to the story on NPR. After we showed the trailer and some short clips from the documentary footage from 'Queens Of Syria', The inspirational cast of The Trojan Women received a standing ovation from a visibly moved Georgetown audience.Under the expert moderation and translation of Syrian broadcaster Honey Al Sayed, the cast, director and audience were able to have a discussion about the project, sharing experiences of participating in and of watching some of the performance. Despite thousands of miles and visa denials, the team at Georgetown enabled our cast to tell their stories and ask their questions, and gave the Washington audience a flavour of what (we hope!) is to come if visas are granted and a live performance is made possible.
You can discover more about the event in a report by Peter Marks in the Washington Post and also in a Foreign Policy article by Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, co-founder of the Georgetown Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics.
Geneva
The Talberg Institute also hosted nine of the cast members to mount an abridged version of The Trojan Women at CERN in Switzerland.
The original production was invited to go on tour in the US and Switzerland, courtesy of Georgetown University in Washington DC, and Columbia University in New York, but sadly the casts visas were denied, so the tour was 'virtual' since unfortunately our original cast were unable to travel to the US as their visas were rejected. Listen here to the story on NPR. After we showed the trailer and some short clips from the documentary footage from 'Queens Of Syria', The inspirational cast of The Trojan Women received a standing ovation from a visibly moved Georgetown audience.Under the expert moderation and translation of Syrian broadcaster Honey Al Sayed, the cast, director and audience were able to have a discussion about the project, sharing experiences of participating in and of watching some of the performance. Despite thousands of miles and visa denials, the team at Georgetown enabled our cast to tell their stories and ask their questions, and gave the Washington audience a flavour of what (we hope!) is to come if visas are granted and a live performance is made possible.
You can discover more about the event in a report by Peter Marks in the Washington Post and also in a Foreign Policy article by Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, co-founder of the Georgetown Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics.
Geneva
The Talberg Institute also hosted nine of the cast members to mount an abridged version of The Trojan Women at CERN in Switzerland.
In 2013 Refuge Productions in partnership with Oxfam mounted a new production of Euripides’ great anti war tragedy the Trojan Women in Jordan with a cast of Syrian refugee women displaced by the war in Syria. The production was intended both as a psycho-social support measure for the participants, and as an advocacy tool to highlight the plight of Syrian refugees. The women who participated arrived at the workshops in varying states of suffering from depression, feelings of isolation and PTSD. Without claiming that the production cured these, the Syrian psychologist we employed to monitor the workshops and rehearsals confirmed that the process allowed the women to take back a great measure of self confidence and self respect, as well as finding a new support group through sharing each others’ stories and experiences. In 2013 the refugee crisis engulfing the region as a result of the civil war in Syria was very under-reported internationally. We correctly projected that showing this crisis in a different and dramatically surprising way would have a much wider impact in reporting terms, and as such the play was widely covered by regional and international press both in newsprint and on television.
OLIVER! IN ARABIC
The first Arabic language production of Oliver!the hit musical by Lionel Bart with a junior cast of Syrian refugee children and Jordanian underprivileged children.
In 2015 TWP commissioned and produced the world premiere of Oliver! in Arabic, an updated, Arabic version of Oliver! Lionel Bart's great musical inspired by Charles Dickens classic novel. The musical - culmination of a seven month music and drama psycho-social support programme for Syrian refugee and underprivileged Jordanian children - was performed to great acclaim in Amman's Royal Cultural Centre in September 2015, had a 40 strong junior cast of the children from the workshops. It was directed by the Egyptian actor and human rights activist Khaled Abol Naga.
Support our current project 'Trojans UK' by donating here
Initial Music & Drama Workshops
The Oliver Music and Drama Project (All the World’s a Stage) provided psycho-social support for Syrian refugee children who either already suffer from PTSD and other post-conflict or displacement-related psychological issues, or are at risk from long-term psychological problems as a result of their experiences and situation.
The programme, which has been running for over a year helps teach the children skills, gives them self-confidence, work through trauma, overcome isolation and depression.
The classes are mixed for boys and girls, which helps encourage good gender relations. They are also open to Jordanian underprivileged children to help build bridges between Syrians and Jordanians often living on the same areas.
Post Oliver (All the World's Stage)
From January - March 2016, we ran bilingual Arabic and English music and drama workshops for 40 Syrian and underprivileged Jordanian children in Amman. The project was backed by the British Embassy (Syria), and run by an eight-strong local Jordanian and Syrian team, overseen by Edwina Issa, former Head of Drama at several prestigious Jordanian schools and advisor on Educational Drama to the Jordanian government. Four of our local team was also being trained by Edwina during the workshops. The children learned to read music, to play the recorder, to sing songs in English, to improvise drama and work their own stories into drama, to act out scenes from Shakespeare in both English and Arabic.
Directed by THE MULTI AWARD WINNING EGYPTIAN ACTOR, DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER, KHALED ABOL NAGA
Supported by the world-renowned musical producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh.
ELHAMY AMIN - FAREEHA (FAGIN)
LAMA ZAKHARIA – NOUSSA (NANCY)
MICHEL MA’AAYEH – SABARESS (BILL SYKES)
ADY AL NABER - BOR’I (Mr. BUMBLE)
MOHAMMED ABU SALIM - BAHER (BROWNLOW)
ZEINAB MOBARAK - AMINA (MRS. BEDWIN)
LANA ABU KHADER - ZINAT (WIDOW CORNEY)
CHILDREN
FADI AL ASAL - OLIVER
IBRAHIM OMRAN - NOQ NOQ (DODGER)
MOHAMMED WAEL SHAQRA - NOAH
THE GANG // QUSAI KUBKUB, LEILA MUSTAFA, HOOR MUSTAFA, ZEINA MUSTAFA, SAYAH AL FUSAHI, MANAR AL FUSAHI, MARWA AL FUSAHI, ABDULLA BIRJAWI, SARAH KHANKAN, SIDRA KHANKAN, GHADEER AL SATLI
