Recent Podcasts

In the last episode of the fourth season of Kunafa and Shay—which was a historical and classical Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) theatre season—Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson reflect on the season, give some additional insight, and provide a broader overview of their framework for historical and classical theatre.

Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson discuss Ottoman theatre, emphasizing its significance in global theatre history. They highlight the Ottoman Empire as a pivotal point of cultural exchange comparable to the Greek and Roman empires. They focus on three major forms of traditional theatre—Ortaoyunu, Karagöz, and Meddah—and dive into these forms of “plays performed in the open,” shadow theatre, and storytelling.

Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson talk about Egyptian playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim and his “unstageable” classic play People of the Cave. They provide historical context of the play, al-Hakim’s career, and the Christian and Islamic stories that served as al-Hakim’s inspiration.

In this final episode of season four, ​​Malia'Kekia, co-founder of B4 The Other Creations, explores how play and vulnerability drive transformational breakthroughs. Malia'Kekia shares their journey as an educator and leader, emphasizing the power of releasing perfectionism and embracing the unknown. The episode highlights fostering innovation and deep connections through the unique pedagogy of play.

Audiences pack houses to see stories about forbidden love. Romeo and Juliet is a famous Western example of this phenomenon, but the trope goes back much further, to a poem that likely inspired even inadvertently Shakespeare's famous play. In this episode, we look at the timeless tale of Layla and Majnun made famous by Nizami Ganjavi as a poem and later adopted for the stage and the screen countless times.