Fikra’s production “Casino, staged at Rawabet Theater last Wednesday, is an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Instead of the famous cathedral, this play is set in a Casino, as its title indicates. The makeshift auditorium of Rawabet in downtown Cairo had clusters of seats in place of the organized rows of …

In its seventh year, the Sawy Culture Wheel’s Theater Festival attracted professional and amateur talents alike, ranging from newly formed amateur groups, to theater companies with some experience in the field. Fifty-seven plays applied for entry, 31 were accepted and eventually zoomed down to 27 performances presented this week. Three examples from the festival offerings …

The much-touted revival of Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s “Praxa – based on Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata – about the role women could play in government and putting an end to a needless war, has been dubbed by some critics as the must-see theatrical performance of the year. “Lysistrata was staged by international theater companies in recent years as an …

Five human-sized puppets and five individuals dressed in similar attire to the puppets interview an official sitting behind a screen on a very high chair on top of a TV set. Initially, it’s not clear who is conducting the interview. The scene, in its entirety, is repeated in double-speed, injecting the stage with a more …

The most prominent name in dance theater departed our world earlier this month, weeks before her planned trip to Cairo to create a new piece about Egypt. Pina Bausch, the German dancer and choreographer who revolutionized dance theater, died at age 68 after serving the theater and dance world with treasures of choreography for 35 …

The official rhetoric of the fourth edition of the National Theater festival, evident in its daily publication, is a celebration of some kind of renaissance in Egyptian Theater. Judging by the plays presented in the festival, it’s clear that Egyptian theater is in a deep slumber, its faint pulse originating from a handful of classic …

The hot summer in Cairo is coinciding with a busy cultural season: the National Theater Festival kicked off on July 1, overlapping with the Modern Dance Festival, both sponsored by the Cultural Development Fund of the Ministry of Culture. In its fourth year, the theater festival lit 12 stages across Cairo with 36 performances, 27 …

Dance, the universe is dancing, a famous saying by 12th century Sufi poet and philosopher Jalaluddin Rumi, resonated in venues around Cairo and Alexandria as the 10th Egyptian International Modern Dance Festival got underway. Since its inception in 1999, the dance fest has always been keen on connecting local talent with current trends in modern …

The latest Egyptian theater adaptation of “Hamlet starts with a short film of a young Egyptian man finding his way in the crowded streets of Cairo, negotiating a path through the puddles of water, fantasizing over the photos of weddings in a shop window, then discovering a copy of “Hamlet in a pile of old …