Today Elaine and Louise chat with the brilliant playwright Sara Shaarawi. They chat Sara’s new play Sister Radio which is touring Scotland right now and is a co-production between Stellar Quines and Pitlochry Theatre . The play is about Sisters Fatemeh and Shirin have been living together, in the same flat in Edinburgh, for 43 years. In this flat they cook, read their coffee grains, listen to the radio, and try to remember their childhoods in Tehran but they no longer talk to one another. When a global pandemic hits and the sisters are locked in their flat, they are forced to reckon with their memories of a betrayal that changed the course of their relationship. The trio also discuss the lack of visible and vocal support from the theatrical community regarding the events in Iran
We as Persistent and Nast know we need to do more and wish to make a call out to our theatres in Scotland to discuss what we can do to help.
Sara Shaarawi
A playwright from Cairo, based in Glasgow. Sara has received development support from the National Theatre of Scotland, Creative Scotland, Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Edinburgh International Festival. Has had her work read at the Tron Theatre (Glasgow), Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), Village Pub Theatre (Edinburgh), Platform (Easterhouse), Rich Mix (London) and the CCA (Glasgow), and I’ve had plays produced internationally in Germany, South Africa and Uganda. In 2017, she began to take on producing projects, most notably project managing the Arab Arts Focus showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and partnering with the Workers Theatre to crowdfund and create Megaphone, a new bursary aimed at supporting artists of colour based in Scotland. Sara was Executive Director of Highlight Arts between 2019 -2021 and often work as an administrator for small film festivals in Glasgow. In 2021, her first play Niqabi Ninja was produced by Independent Arts Project (Edinburgh) in association with Hewar Company (Alexandria), it opened at Shubbak Festival in London, followed by a Scotland-wide tour and a run at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Twitter: @StellarQuines
Instagram: @stellarquines
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