In August 2003, nearly four months after the US invasion of Iraq, a group of amateur Iraqi performers called الناجون Al-Najun/ The Survivors improvised a short play ‘They Passed Through Here’ “مروا من هنا”, utilising the remnants of the Rashid Theater. Shelled during the war and then harmed by saboteurs, the Rashid Theatre was a casualty of the invasion and the lawlessness that followed. The debris of the place perfectly fitted the mise en scène of the performance that reimagined Baghdad’s resistance against the Mongolian siege in the 13th century.  The performance relocated that historical incident to the current moment then, drawing on the similar military violence against the city and the population. Displaying how old Baghdad outlived that foreign and barbaric invasion visualised the historical fact that cities outlive invaders. While the play lacked the professionality of the shows that used to be performed on the Rashid stage, the significance of performing a play under the US occupation lies in the fact of employing the theatre venue to ‘perform’ the act of resistance. The audience was a very small cohort of Iraqi theatre makers who decided to gather and watch the play despite the fragile security situation in Baghdad. Theater, then, had the capacity to bring people together, reestablishing connection between the occupied place and population through playmaking. Resisting the occupation and the lifelessness was materialised by this simple act of humanity, communication and creativity. 

 

Similar to that factual anecdote in Baghdad, theatre-makers across Arabic countries have resisted occupation and colonial powers through playmaking. Throughout Arabic history, subduing occupied nations through violence and negation has given rise to performative practices to enunciate and show the diverse registers of resistance. In the realm of Theatre of the Oppressed, theatre is deemed a creative locus of political resistance. In an environment that is set for destruction and extermination of the occupied, theatre becomes an apparatus, and a method, to disrupt the occupation process of land and peoples. Following coercive foreign interventions and conquests, self-expression and representation are needed to speak back to the occupiers’ politics of marginalisation and silencing. 

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In this special issue, we look at how Arabic theatre has had the capacity to articulate resistance and opposition against the brutality of occupation, invasion and (neo)colonialism. We understand the continuity of Arabic theatre productions under occupations or invasions as a form of cultural resistance that fashions civic and aesthetic paths vis à vis the occupants’ defacing discourses. We also welcome contributions that examine how theatre and performing arts lend their skills to resistant movements. The time-honoured tradition of theatre and drama equips protesters with the adroitness of body expressions, vocal energy and performative stances to underpin their rejection of occupation and oppression. 

 

As such, we invite proposals for 4000-4500 word submissions that respond to these and related questions:

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•  How has Arabic theatre during colonial, postcolonial and contemporary histories played pivotal roles in expressing local and regional resistance?

• What are the creative tools that Arabic theatre utilises to create repertoires of resistance?

• How does making Arabic theatres of resistance contribute to the self-styling of Arabic theatre makers as figures of political dissidence?

• Where/ when are theatrical practices exercised outside theatre houses, as part of social movements and/or as performative acts of resistance? 

 

The special issue also welcomes proposals for shorter pieces (between 1000-2000 words), including book reviews, performances, interviews and short excerpts, that engage with the themes of theatre, creative resistance and occupation in the Arabic region.

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Key Dates:

CFP: February 1, 2025

Abstract submission (please send to arabictheatrewg@gmail.com): April 1, 2025

First draft: July 1, 2025

First drafts returned: August 1, 2025

Second draft submission: September 1, 2025

edits and proofreading done by: October 1, 2025

Publication November 1, 2025

 

Submission Guidelines (Link)

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​Guest Editors:

Samer Al-Saber, Sarah Youssef and Hadeel Abdelhameed

 

Note that Arab Stages is a peer-reviewed journal. Articles should fall between 4,000 and 4,500 words. We are especially interested in the studies and reviews of recent or contemporary work. Proposals or articles may be submitted to our editors at arabictheatrewg@gmail.com. Please include the following in your article submission:
 

• Contact details: your full name, institutional affiliation (if relevant) and email address. 

• a short biographical note (no longer than 250 words)

•  Any relevant images for publication with a document detailing each image’s caption and credit.

 

About Arab Stages

Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora.  The journal does not seek to be exclusive nor to promote any nationalist or religion-based agenda. In strictly geographical and political terms, the journal will be devoted to theatre and performance material from the member states of the League of Arab States, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, but also diasporic literature from around the globe created by former residents of those states or their descendants.  Moreover, both the operative adjectives Arab and Islamic should be understood here to demarcate, primarily, a general cultural area of scholarly exploration and negotiation. Investigations of material from the many non-Arab and non-Muslim communities located within the Arab/Muslim world are welcomed by the journal. Subjects can be drawn from all areas of theatre activity as well as from performance work that lies outside the traditional European concept of theatre. The journal will welcome essays of a scholarly nature, which will be submitted to peer review, also reports on current productions, interviews, and translations of plays and theoretical statements, and reports, notices and announcements of current and future productions and festivals or other matters of potential general interest to the readership. 
 

The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research.