Bitterenders by Hannah Khalil

Event information

Join us for the second and final reading by emerging Arab playwrights as part of our collaboration with Sandpit Productions’ Bulbul Playwriting Competitions. The Bulbul Playwriting Competition invites writers from around the world to submit short plays in response to a theme about the Arab world and it’s surrounding regions. The second reading to be presented at The Mosaic Rooms is ‘Bitterenders’ by Hannah Khalil.

Inspired by a true story, Bitterenders is a dark comedy about a family of Palestinians who find themselves forced to share their home with Jewish settlers by a court ruling. When the daughter, Maha, crosses the imposing chalk line separating her family from the interlopers, she discovers something that threatens to destroy this already fragile home altogether.

Hannah Khalil is an award-wining writer who has worked with the National Theatre Studio, Royal Court (Young Writers’ Programme) and Tinderbox Theatre in Belfast. Her work includes Ring, selected for the Soho Theatre’s Westminster Prize; Plan D, nominated for the Meyer Whitworth Award; and The Worst Cook in the West Bank. Her radio work includes The Deportation Room, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in autumn 2012, and her play Last of the Pearl Fishers will be on BBC Radio 4 early in 2015. She has just finished writing her first short film The Record, and is currently developing an idea with BBC Drama for BBC One.

Sandpit Productions is a non-profit arts organisation, which creates inspiring, high participatory events for local communities. By providing platforms for presenting and discussing the diverse creative cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas, their aim is to create spaces of learning and cross-cultural understanding. Sandpit organized Brighton’s first ever festival of Arabic music, film, dance and storytelling, held on the Royal Pavillion Grounds and supported by the Arts Council.