IndieGoGo: Support Independent Palestinian Theater
Khashabi Theatre is looking for support for their new play, The Museum:
According to Khashabi, The Museum is set to debut in Haifa on November 14, 2019, with performances to follow in Belgium (2019), Switzerland (2020), and elsewhere to follow.
The Khashabi Theatre is relatively new to Haifa. The theatre opened its doors in 2015, in an old warehouse, founded by Bashar Murkus and the Khashabi Ensemble.
From the beginning, Khashabi chose to be an independent theater, which has meant refusing institutional Israeli financial support, as, organizers say, “we believe in the importance of an independent and free Palestinian cultural scene.” This comes in the wake of fellow Haifa-based theatre artists at Al Midan struggling to regain their municipal funding after having it yanked by the Israeli Culture Ministry, in a political battle that centered around Bashar Murkus’ play A Parallel Time.
To stage The Museum, Khashabi is looking for 27,500€, which they say will be used “for the decor, the clothing of the actors, to record the music for the play, and to purchase some technical equipment.”
The play, written by Murkus with research by author Majd Kayyal — whose work recently appeared in Palestine + 100 tr. Thoraya El Rayyes — begins when a man is sentenced to death by lethal injection for committing a terror attack on a museum of contemporary art. In the attack, 49 children and a teacher were killed.
His original plan, to be killed by the police inside the museum, has failed. He was arrested, interrogated, and sentenced to death. For the execution to be carried out, he had to wait for seven years.
A week before the execution, he insists on meeting the detective who investigated his case. He convinces him to be the last person he meets and to join him for his last supper.
At the final evening the two men meet alone in a locked room in the building where the capital punishment will be carried out.
This meeting allows them both to play risky and manipulative games. Games that can only be played at a last night. Games in which they search for the meaning of the death they desire.
Khashabi makes their pitch:
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