If you’re coming along to see The Beekeeper of Aleppo on Monday 6 February, don’t miss this fascinating pre-show discussion. We’ll be hosting Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler, who adapted Christy Lefteri’s best-selling novel for the stage, along with Anna Ball, a local academic and Chair of Nottingham Refugee Week.
Come along to explore representations of forced migration in literature and drama and to consider the ideas of authorship and adaptation that arise from this piece of work.
This talk is free to attend but must be booked as spaces are limited.
The Panel
Anna Ball is Associate Professor in Postcolonial Feminisms, Literatures and Cultures at Nottingham Trent University. Her research explores and enacts transcultural feminist activisms within the landscapes of refugee and sanctuary-seeking experience, and her most recent monograph, Forced Migration in the Feminist Imagination: Transcultural Movements, was published with Routledge in 2021. Anna’s work is founded in a collaborative participatory arts-based framework, and in addition to her part-time role at NTU, she is a Community Outreach Programmer for Vanclaron CIC: a community interest company that supports refugees’ and sanctuary-seekers’ physical and mental health, through whom she currently delivers an interdisciplinary arts programme to support mental wellbeing for sanctuary-seekers in asylum accommodation across Nottingham. Anna is also Chair of Nottingham Refugee Week, an annual arts festival that works to create a culture of city-wide sanctuary through the arts, and is an active member of the University of Sanctuary team at NTU. Her current research project, ‘Hostile Environment, Artful Living: New Narratives and Cultural Practices of Sanctuary’, draws on these cross-sector networks, and will be launched through the Postcolonial Studies Centre at the Bonington Gallery in June this year as part of Nottingham’s Refugee Week celebrations; all are welcome to attend.
Matthew Spangler’s plays have been produced on Broadway (Hayes Theatre), in London’s West End (Wyndham’s Theatre and the London Playhouse), off-Broadway in New York (59E59 Theatre), the Dubai Opera House, Dublin Theatre Festival, Carthage Theatre Festival in Tunisia, and at many other theatres and festivals around the world. Some of his plays include: The Kite Runner from the novel by Khaled Hosseini; Albatross based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; Operation Ajax about the CIA / MI6 coup in Iran in 1953; The Story of Zahra from the novel by Hanan al-Shaykh; Striking Back based on the book by Mary Manning and Sinead O’Brien about the Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid strike in Ireland; Tortilla Curtain from the novel by T.C. Boyle; The Forgotten Empress about the Mughal Empress Noor Jahan; and Shady Hills from the short stories of John Cheever.
Matthew is also a Professor of Performance Studies at San José State University in California where he teaches courses in how refugees and asylum-seekers are represented through the arts. Website: www.matthewspangler.org
Adam Penford is Artistic Director of Nottingham Playhouse. He trained at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).
For Nottingham Playhouse credits include: Dick Whittington, The Clothes They Stood Up In, A Christmas Carol (& Alexandra Palace & worldwide cinema release), Piaf, Cinderella, Bubble, Holes (& UK Tour), An enemy of the People, Coram Boy, The Madness of George III (& NT Live) and Wonderland.
For the National Theatre credits include: A Small Family Business (Olivier); Dorfman Opening Gala (Dorfman); Island (Cottesloe); One Man Two Guvnors, Revival Director (West End/Broadway/UK and International Tour) and NT 50 Years on Stage, Associate Director (Olivier and BBC2).
Other Directing credits include: Committee (Donmar Warehouse); The Boys in The Band (Vaudeville/Park Theatre); Platinum (Hampstead Theatre); Unfaithful (Found111); Watership Down (The Watermill Theatre); Deathtrap (Salisbury Playhouse/UK Tour); Ghost the Musical (The English Theatre, Frankfurt); Stepping Out (Salisbury Playhouse) and The Machine Gunners and Run! (Polka Theatre).
Assistant/Associate director credits include: The Winter’s Tale (Propeller at The Watermill Theatre); The Vagina Monologues (National Tour); 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Bush Theatre); Imagine This (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Dying For It (Almeida) and Charley’s Aunt (Oxford Playhouse).
Book to see the show
The Beekeeper Of Aleppo
Adapted for the stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler. From the acclaimed novel by Christy Lefteri Monday 6 FebruaryA brand new adaptation from the writers of our production of The Kite Runner.