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Join us for the second and final reading by emerging Arab playwrights as part of our collaboration with Sandpit Productions’ Bulbul Playwriting Competitions. The Bulbul Playwriting Competition invites writers from around the world to submit short plays in response to a theme about the Arab world and it’s surrounding regions. The second reading to be presented at The Mosaic Rooms opens with a short reading of a new piece by Hassan Abdulrazzak The Tune is always better on the outside followed by the main reading of Bitterenders by Hannah Khalil. The readings are directed by Chris White. 

The Tune is always better on the outside is a short play featuring two people encountering one another in a shared space. An Instructor has given them a vague directive to work together, or perhaps play. One of them devises a game that seems harmless at first, but quickly escalates into something more sinister. There might be a chance for reconciliation, if only he could stop humming the sacred tune. This was recently performed at the Gather for Gaza event in August.

Inspired by a true story, Bitterenders is a dark comedy about a family of Palestinians who find themselves forced to share their home with Jewish settlers by a court ruling. As they struggle to come to terms with the imposing chalk line separating them from the interlopers, they discover something that threatens to destroy their already fragile home altogether.

Hannah Khalil is an award-wining writer who has worked with the National Theatre Studio, Royal Court (Young Writers’ Programme) and Tinderbox Theatre in Belfast. Her work includes Ring, selected for the Soho Theatre’s Westminster Prize; Plan D, nominated for the Meyer Whitworth Award; and The Worst Cook in the West Bank. Her radio work includes The Deportation Room, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in autumn 2012, and her play Last of the Pearl Fishers will be on BBC Radio 4 early in 2015. She has just finished writing her first short film The Record, and is currently developing an idea with BBC Drama for BBC One.

Hassan Abdulrazzak is an award–winning playwright of Iraqi origin. His first play, Baghdad Wedding, premiered at Soho Theatre, London. Other productions were at the Belvoir Theatre, Sydney and by Akvarious productions in India. It was also broadcast on BBC Radio 3. It will have a staged reading by Golden Thread Theatre in the USA later in 2014. His second play, The Prophet was staged at the Gate theatre, London and had a reading by Noor theatre in NYC. He has written two full-length screenplays, numerous short plays and translated plays for the Royal Court Theatre. Hassan received the George Devine, Meyer-Whitworth and Pearson theatre awards as well as the Arab British Centre Award for Culture. He is currently working on a number of theatre, TV and film projects.

Chris White is a freelance theatre director and and an Associate Practitioner for RSC Education who has directed work in Italy, France, India and around the UK. Recent work includes Soho Young Playwrights (Soho), 40 Years Young (Young Vic) and Hard Places (Mercury/Prithvi) and much of his work has focused on new plays, including Hannah Khalil’s Plan D (Tristan Bates). In November he will direct 1984 at the Finborough as part of Vibrant Festival and Fewer Emergencies at Teatro Litta, Milan.

Sandpit Productions is a non-profit arts organisation, which creates inspiring, high participatory events for local communities. By providing platforms for presenting and discussing the diverse creative cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas, their aim is to create spaces of learning and cross-cultural understanding. Sandpit organized Brighton’s first ever festival of Arabic music, film, dance and storytelling, held on the Royal Pavillion Grounds and supported by the Arts Council.

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