By Hala Nasar
UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH –American University of Sharjah’s theatre students are collaborating on an upcoming Devised Theatre project titled Mysteries of the Desert, said Professor Anthony Tassa in a Tuesday podcast.
Devised Theatre is when a creative group of performers, designers, and actors get together and build a theatre production without using a playwright.
The second stage of the third AUS Devised Theatre piece, Mysteries of the Desert, will be in progress in the Fall 2022 semester.
“We’re starting with the idea of the culture here,” said Tassa when asked how the idea of the project was developed. “Many of our students are Arab, but many are not. Everybody has got an experience in the desert here with a different perspective on it.”
In a separate email, Tassa wrote that he hopes the Mysteries of the Desert performance goes beyond the AUS campus into United Arab Emirates’ theatres.
“You never know what you’re going to end up with,” he added. “It always starts with the creative process, and you start the creative process with an idea, and you build on that idea.”
