Khawla Ibraheem is a Syrian/ Palestinian theatre artist born and raised in Majdal Shams – the occupied Golan Heights. She is an actress, playwright, and director. In 2004, a group for youngsters, Ibraheem among them, led by the Syrian writer Mutaz Abu Saleh, started a small theatre in the village: O’eon (eyes). She later continued theatre studies at Haifa University graduating with honors. Ibraheem started working as an actress with all the theatres in Palestine, gaining recognition as an actress. She has starred in plays such as, A Parallel Timeline by Bashar Murkus, Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, The Whole Story and Summer Time by Ameer Hlehel, The Bride and the Butterfly Hunter by Nisim Aloni, Winter Funeral by Hanoch Levin, Sarita by Maria Irene Frone, and recently The Publisher by Ameer Hlehel.
In 2017 she wrote and directed her first show and became a regular in the National Palestinian Theatre where she has created two shows as writer/director for the national main stage: a musical for all ages called The Story Keeper, based on an African method; and Soon to be Gone, a show that tells the story of the Druze Syrian community in the occupied Golan Heights. Later she joined the Family of the Freedom Theatre and wrote and directed several plays, among them London-Jenin. She was part of the Sundance Theatre Lab 2019. Recently she was awarded best script and best director honors at the Palestinian National Festival for her play London-Jenin.
During her residency at MacDowell, she worked on rewriting the play, Metro Gaza into Arabic. It is a play co written with Herve Liochemol based on an art project of the artist Mohamad Abu Sal. The play will be opening at the Freedom Theatre in Jenin camp April 2020. She also worked on her one-woman play Through Borders, that tells a story of love, land, and refugees. She finished the research and the outline of the story. In addition, she wrote four scenes for the the play and will use them to apply for budgets and grants to finish writing and produce the show 2020-2021.
Portrait by Saheer Oubaid
