No Summary: Al-Harah Theater of Beit Jala

Our 2024 virtual artist conversation series embarks on a tour of four Palestinian cities to offer audiences in the Bay Area and beyond a taste of the Palestinian theatre scene today. Each episode spotlights a different theatre, showcasing its history, notable performances, challenges, and life behind the scenes through interviews with its artists and community members. Theatremakers, audiences, professors, and students are all invited to join in these stimulating conversations about making theatre under occupation and during times of mass atrocities and genocide.

Golden Thread continues the series of online conversations with Palestinian theatres this week with a spotlight on Al-Harah Theatre, a non-profit cultural organization based in Beit-Jala, Palestine. Al-Harah Theatre is dedicated to fostering a civil society that prioritizes human rights, democracy, and freedom of expression. They work with all age groups through performances, festivals, training programs, and cultural projects. By engaging the local Palestinian community, including marginalized areas, and forming international partnerships, Al-Harah Theater aims to enhance both its own work and the performing arts sector in Palestine.

Join the conversation to learn more about Al-Harah Theatre from Marina Barham, its cofounder and general director. Marina Johnson, a director, dramaturg and a PhD candidate in TAPS at Stanford University will moderate the conversation.

Bios

Marina Barham (speaker) cofounder, general director of Al-Harah Theater, President of the Palestinian Performing Arts Network from 2019-2021. An active cultural operator in Palestine, the Middle East and in Europe since 1998. A Fellow of ISPA & Salzburg Global Seminar. IETM Global Connector and Board member in 2023. A trainer in the field of Cultural Management in the Arab World since 2006 with Al Mawred Resource, Tamasi Collective and Goethe Institute in Berlin and in Palestine. A speaker at several international conferences, festivals, and events.

​​Marina Johnson (moderator) is a PhD candidate in TAPS at Stanford University (MFA in Directing, University of Iowa). Her dissertation research concerns Palestinian performance from 2015 to the present. Johnson is the co-host of Kunafa and Shay, a MENA theatre podcast produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons, and they are also a member of Silk Road Rising’s Polycultural Institute. Johnson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in TDR: The Drama Review, Theatre/Practice, Arab Stages, "Decolonizing Dramaturgy in a Global Context" (Bloomsbury), "Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders and Sexualities" (Routledge), and "Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance, Volume I: Performers" (Bloomsbury). Prior to her PhD, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College for three years. Select recent directing credits include: The Wolves (Stanford) The Shroud Maker (International Voices Project), Shakespeare’s Sisters (Stanford), The Palestinian Youth Monologues (Stanford), Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche (Beloit College), and In the Next Room (Beloit College). Website.

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