Al-Ahsa theater festival wows drama lovers

Seven plays will be competing for nine awards at this year's nine-day Al-Ahsa Theater Festival that started here on Wednesday.
The plays participating this year are Under the Scalpel, Headline, Who Will Loosen My Chains, A New Bottom, The Door, No Hope in the Water and Zero Corpse.
The play Baayth, which will not compete for an award, will be performed by a troupe from the Sharjah Folk Art and Modern Theater Society from the United Arab Emirates.
The festival’s nine award categories are: Best integrated theater show, best director, best playwright, best lead actor, best supporting actor, and awards for best sound, lighting, decor and fashion.
This is the third theater festival being held at the headquarters of the Al-Ahsa Culture and Arts Society in Al-Hofuf. It is held every two years.
The festival’s jury consists of Saudi playwright Mishal Al-Rasheed, Qatari stage actor Nasser Abdul Redha and the Moroccan theater director Youssef Al-Aarqroubi.
Five Saudi theater pioneers honored during the opening ceremony were Abdullah Al-Turki, Ibrahim Al-Hasawi, Abdulaziz Al-Khamis, Khaled Al-Manneh, and Fahad Al-Harthy.
The Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Abdullah bin Saleh Al-Jasser inaugurated the festival and the accompanying Performing Arts Exhibition in the presence of chairman of the Saudi Arabia Society for Culture and Arts Sultan Al-Bazai and its general manager Abdul Aziz Alsimaeil, in addition to a number of intellectuals and dramatists from all over the Kingdom.