Masrah Ensemble

OUTLINE: Masrah Ensemble is a nonprofit theatre company and organization that makes, develops, and fosters research and criticism of theatre with a focus on the Arab stage. In 2015-2016, ME developped Family Ti-Jean, a street theatre project, educational program, and cultural initiative confronting the divisive repercussions of post-colonial warfar.

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE: Family Ti Jean was a musical theatre project in public spaces. It was developed and presented by amateur teenage and professional adult actors and musicians representing various communities: Syrian and Palestinian refugees, Lebanese citizens, migrant workers, and international artists. Masrah Ensemble partnered with Basmeh & Zeitooneh for Relief and Development in Shatila refugee camp, and the latter’s Art and Culture Center served as the base for the project. The collaboration between the two institutions ran the course of about one year. Featuring adaptations of a Caribbean and a Serbian play, the double-bill theatre project concerned the welfare of youth and women as well as of refugees and migrant workers who suffer human rights violations and discrimination in Lebanon. It culminated in spring 2016 with free performances at six locations throughout Beirut, including public parks and open community centers, and reached well over a thousand people. Family Ti-Jean intermingled demographic groups otherwise at odds in a society on the periphery of the ongoing Syria war; indeed, Beirut is mired in segregation, inequality, and internecine tension, echoes of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990).