Sahar Assaf is a theater actress and director. She recently co-established the AUB Theater Initiative with Robert Myers, which aims to place theatrical performance and study at the center of intellectual life at AUB. She is also a co-founder of Tahweel Ensemble Theater, a Beirut-based theater group dedicated to producing a varied repertory of quality productions in Lebanon, the Arab world and abroad.
She recently co-translated, co-directed and starred in Shakespeare’s King Lear at Al Madina Theater in Beirut, the first production of Shakespeare in Lebanese colloquial. Her credits as a director include Ab: Beit Byout (an adaption of Tracy Letts’ August Osage County), Saadallah Wannous’ The Rape and Rituals of Signs and Transformations, Issam Mahfouz’s The Dictator, Watch Your Step, a site-specific performance about our memories of the Lebanese civil war and Ana Amel Ana Amela, a devised documentary theatre about the experience of janitors at AUB. Recent credits as an actress include title role of Fo and Rame’s An Arab Woman Speaks produced by The Faction at New Diorama Theater in London and Barbara in Ab: Beit Byout at Babel Theater.
Sahar is a member of Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and a Fulbright alumnus with an MA in Theater Studies from Central Washington University (2011). She also holds a Bachelor degree in Journalism from the Lebanese University (2001), a Master degree in Sociology from the American University of Beirut (2005), and a Professional Executive Master degree in Psycho-social Animation in War-torn Societies from the International Organization for Migration and the Lebanese University (2008).