A Museum in Baghdad (Modern Plays)

Product Description

This is about my responsibility. Doing what is right. Being where I’m needed. I’ve started a job and I must finish it. I owe it to the people of Iraq. In 1926, the nation of Iraq is in its infancy, and British archaeologist Gertrude Bell is founding a museum in Baghdad. In 2006, Ghalia Hussein is attempting to reopen the museum after looting during the war.Decades apart, these two women share the same goals: to create a fresh sense of unity and nationhood, to make the world anew through the museum and its treasures. But in such unstable times, questions remain. Who is the museum for? Whose culture are we preserving? And why does it matter when people are dying?A story of treasured history, desperate choices and the remarkable Gertrude Bell. This edition of Hannah Khalil’s epic new play was published to coincide with the world premiere at the RSC’s The Other Place in 2019.

Review

“As a Palestinian-Irish dramatist, Khalil writes with feeling about homelessness, migration and a culture in which masculinity is equated with ownership.” ―Michael Billington, The Guardian“Khalil’s talent is big and intelligent, and it’s still growing. Watch out!” ―Naomi Wallace“This new work by Palestinian/Irish playwright Hannah Khalil confirms her as a dramatist of compelling potential” ―Telegraph (on Scenes from 68* Years)

About the Author

An award-wining writer, Hannah Khalil had her first short play,
Ring, selected for the Soho Theatre’s Westminster Prize and her first full- length piece,
Leaving Home, staged at the King’s Head, London. A commission for Rose Bruford at Battersea Arts Centre followed, and she subsequently received support from The Peggy Ramsay Foundation to write
Stolen Or Strayed, which received a Special Commendation in the Verity Bargate Award. Further work includes
Plan D (published by TCG in their volume
Inside/Outside
Six plays from Palestine and the Diaspora), which
was produced at Tristan Bates Theatre, London, and was nominated for the Meyer Whitworth Award. She has worked with the National Theatre Studio, Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme and Tinderbox Theatre, Belfast. Most recently, her play
Bitterenders won Sandpit Arts’ Bulbul 2013 competition and was produced at Z Space, San Francisco, as part of Golden Thread’s ReOrient Festival, and was published by . Her monologue
The Worst Cook in the West Bank was performed as part of an evening of short plays about Arab women in the Arab Spring at the Old Red Lion and the Unity Theatre as part of the Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival.
The Scar Test was commissioned by Untold Arts and was performed in a scratch performances at the Arcola Theatre in June 2015 and is going on tour in the UK in June 2017.