Background

As a student in Prague Shakespeare Company’s Winter Intensive, Fawzia M. Istrabadi was excited by the company’s vision of creating high-caliber, classic yet cutting-edge English language performances of Shakespeare’s timeless, cross-culturally relevant work with a dedicated ensemble of theatre artists. As an Arab American theatre artist, she felt there was a missing niche in the Shakespeare world for work that reflected her identity. She wanted to create work that reimagined Shakespeare’s iconic plays with 3-dimensional Arab characters who challenged harmful Western stereotypes. She brought her idea to Prague Shakespeare Company’s artistic director, Guy Roberts and the project Arabic Shakespeare was born.

In starting this project with PSC, Fawzia Istrabadi continues a family legacy. Her father’s family hails from Baghdad, Iraq. A family of engineers and doctors, Fawzia’s grandmother, Dr. Amel Amin-Zaki, chose a different path: Shakespeare. An expert of her time on the translations of Shakespeare into Arabic, Amin-Zaki taught Shakespearean Drama at the University of Baghdad as well as the United Arab Emirates University. Eventually, Fawzia would find her own love of Shakespeare and eventually found herself at Mary Baldwin University’s Shakespeare and Performance Program. As she delved into her studies Fawzia's aspirations extended beyond personal success. With a keen awareness of the underrepresentation of Arab bodies on stage, she harbored a fervent desire to effect change within the theater industry. Drawing from her own experiences as an Arab woman navigating the predominantly Western-centric world of Shakespearean theater, Fawzia wanted to create something that celebrates and amplifies the voices of Arab artists.

Pictured below: (Left) Amel Amin-Zaki with her Master's Degree in 1953, (Right) Fawzia M. Istrabadi with her Master's Degree in 2024

Why Shakespeare?

The Middle East has a long history of adapting and translating Shakespeare and yet Arabs and Arab Americans are vastly underrepresented in the Classical Theater world, Arabic Shakespeare hopes to bring that tradition more into the light by producing work that features Arab/SWANA theatre artists on and off stage while also highlighting the beauty of the Arabic language alongside Shakespeare's original text.