The Syrian Monologues
The Syrian Monologues is an international solidarity call for artists living in countries where Syrian refugees are fleeing to. The project aims at raising the voices of Syrian refugees, sharing their stories of agony and displacement, sharing their dreams for safety and for integration until they return to their home countries.
We appeal to artists - especially those working in theatre and for change - in order to:
- Work with the refugees who arrive in their country,
- Make theatre workshops with different age groups,
- Encourage the refugees to tell their stories,
- Collect these stories and translate them into the language of the respective country,
- Form the collected stories into monologues that their authors could tell publicly in a form of a stage reading, a performance, a radio drama or a dramatic play,
- Perform these monologues collectively at the time internationally coordinated for the project,
- Train the participants to perform their stories and if they are not able, find actors for the performances, and
- Collect some of the monologues and their authors in order to participate in performances at the European Parliament in Brussels and the United Nations Office in Geneva.The project will start as soon as the artists are able to reach out to refugees. ASHTAR suggests the beginning of January 2016 as a starting point. The realisation of the work with refugees is expected to take 6 months in each country.
On the World Refugee Day, June 20, 2016, we will all simultaneously perform the monologues gathered with the refugees in each country. Artists could then continue to perform after that set date according to their own time table. On December 20, 2016, the International Solidarity Day, we will target the UN office in Geneva to perform chosen monologues from various countries.
Source: Ashtar Theatre
