SABAB (verb): to cause, bring forth, trigger,
arouse, prompt.

SABAB (noun): rope; road; reason; cause; motive; corners of the sky.

SABAB Theatre

is an independent touring theatre company that works with actors, musicians and stage artists from across the Arab World and beyond. SABAB works across boundaries, challenging assumptions and relentlessly exploring form and content to develop and hone an active, critical and poetic enquiry into the real world through the world of the stage.

SABAB productions are characterised by a radical approach to text, multiplicity of languages, bold visual styles and an uncompromising engagement with issues concerning the contemporary Arab world, its people, cities, history and civilisational crossovers with the Mediterranean basin, Europe and the East.

The company has achieved wide acclaim for its productions, performing to audiences across the world.

Co-founded by British Dramaturge Georgina Van Welie (2004-14) and Kuwaiti writer/ director Sulayman Al Bassam, who continues to lead SABAB to date. The company has been proud to worked alongside many outstanding artists over more than two decades.

In 2025, SABAB’s core team comprises: (in the Artistic team) the Franco-Syrian actress Hala Omran; the Lebanese musicians and composers Ali Hout and Abed Kobeissy; French Scenographer and Lighting Designer Eric Soyer; (on the technical and admin teams) Egyptian Technical Director and Lighting Designer Saad Shaqrawy; Jordanian Company Manager Wafa Al Fraheen; Tunisian Production Manager Oussama Jamei; Syrian Admin Manager Saif Al Areef, Sri Lankan Stage Manager Chaminda Kiralage and Iraqi production assistant Mohammed Jawad.

Sulayman Al Bassam (Playwright & Director) is widely recognised as one of the world's leading contemporary Arab theatre makers. Al Bassam's work explores themes of identity, war and individual sovereignty often set against the backdrop of civilizational overlap and tension between the Arab-Islamic world and the West. Collaborating with multinational performers and creative teams, Al Bassam's productions are characterised by a radical approach to text and provocative combinations of content and form.

Writing in English and directing in Arabic, English, French and German, Al Bassam’s work has been presented by leading international venues (i.e. BAM, Tokyo International Festival, Sydney Festival).

The 2007 premiere of Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, his adaptation of the eponymous play at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and his 2013 Ritual for a Metamorphosis by Syrian playwright Saadallah Al Wannous for La Comedie Francaise in Paris marked historic moments in the presentation of Arabic language texts to world audiences.

Al Bassam was invited as Artist-in-Residence as part of NYU Gallatin’s Visiting Global Faculty Program (2015 & 2017) and to the Sundance Director’s Retreat (Arles, 2016). He gave the keynote address at NYU’s Theatre Without Borders conference (2015) and was a speaker at the World Economic Forum (Davos, 2012). He regularly acts as a juror for international arts grant-making bodies like the Rolex Mentor Program and Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. Study of his work forms part of curricula at universities in the USA and the Middle East.

A defining element of Al Bassam's work is his adaptive transposition of classic texts into the landscape of present-day politics and identity. Between 2001 and 2011 the plays that form The Arab Shakespeare Trilogy (Bloomsbury, 2014) were developed by Al Bassam with his theatre company SABAB . More recently, his work has focused on the development of original texts exploring physical and imaginary borders, and a new cycle of plays inspired by ancient texts.

Recent work includes: UR, a contemporary adaptation of the Sumerian lamentation, co-produced by Rezidenztheater, the State Theatre of Bavaria, in Munich in 2018; Petrol Station, premiered at Kennedy Center in Washington DC in March 2017; the series of female monologues, In the Eruptive Mode (International tour 2015-17), I M E D E A (2021-24) an award winning contemporary re-imagining of the Medea myth and MUTE (2023- ongoing).

Al Bassam’s English language play texts are published by Oberon Modern Plays and Methuen/Bloomsbury.

In 2022, Al Bassam launched a new model for artistic production ‘Post Petroleum Society’; a think tank and cross disciplinary artistic production platform that seeks to usher the world beyond its current dependencies on carbon models and resource extraction. It’s research arm The Failaka Institute for Knowledge and Arts Research FIKAR, is led by French Academic and Curator, Océane Sailly.