Description
A text analysis workshop on the Brechtian fable
Ask most actors what a scene is about and they tell you how they feel. This workshop teaches you to answer like a director: who does what to whom, and why it matters. Using Brecht’s fable technique, you learn to name a scene's action in a single precise sentence. Choose a different verb, or a different character at its centre, and you have a different scene, still completely truthful. That choice is your point of view, and making it boldly is what gets you noticed in the room. Three hours, mostly on the material.
Hassan Al Rawas is a Lebanese theatre director and educator based in London. He brings a perspective shaped by a life lived across continents — one that grounds his belief that theatre can hold what the world would rather look away from, and his deep curiosity about the complexity of human experience.
Hassan holds an MFA in Directing and an MA in Performance from Northwestern University, where he also earned a certificate in Middle East/North African Studies. His work spans bold reinterpretations of classics, musicals, and the development of urgent new plays.
In London, Hassan is currently directing for Land Writes at Theatre503, an Arts Council England-supported new writing initiative exploring themes of land and identity.
Directing credits include Little Women: The Broadway Musical(Quintessence Theatre, Philadelphia), Ibsen’s Rosmersholm (Quintessence), Stephen Karam’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, The Orange Gardenby Joanna Garner, Les Misérables, and Sylvia by A.R. Gurney.
As an associate and assistant director, Hassan has worked on the world premiere of Jen Silverman’s Witch at Writers Theatre Chicago, the world premiere of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at Lookingglass Theatre, and served as Associate Director on The Devil Wears Prada during its pre-West End development with Tony Award-winning director Anna D. Shapiro. He was also assistant director and dramaturg on New Jibla, a new musical at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Center in Kuwait City.
