Sabrina Mahfouz

Sabrina Mahfouz is a British Egyptian poet, playwright, performer and writer from South London, England.

Education

Mahfouz studied a BA in English Literature and Classics and an MA in International Politics and Diplomacy at SOAS, University of London.

Career

Sabrina began her career in the Her Majesty's Civil Service Fast Stream Programme, working with the Ministry of Defence and other departments.

She left the Civil Service to concentrate on creative writing and won a Westminster Prize for New Playwrights in 2010 for her first short play, That Boy, which was performed at Soho Theatre, London.

Mahfouz's poetry work and performances earned her a Creative in Residence Award in 2011 at The Hospital Club in London.

She was invited to New York with the Old Vic New Voices TS Eliot exchange program in 2011 and later that year produced her first solo show, Dry Ice, which premiered at Underbelly during Edinburgh Festival 2011. Dry Ice was directed by David Schwimmer, receiving critical acclaim and a nomination for The Stage Award for Best Solo Performance. It later transferred to The Bush Theatre in London and Contact Theatre in Manchester.[1]

In 2012, her play One Hour Only was chosen by Old Vic New Voices and IdeasTap for their Edinburgh Award and played at the Underbelly. That year she also wrote a short play called Clean for Traverse Theatre as part of The Breakfast Plays 2012, which won a Herald Angel Award.

In 2013, Clean was commissioned as a longer piece and played at Traverse Theatre and Oran Mor in Glasgow, transferring to 59e59 Theater in New York during 2014.

Mahfouz was awarded a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship in 2013, allowing her to produce new poetry work which was collected in a book The Clean Collection, published by Bloomsbury.[1]

The scholarship also enabled her to produce and write a new theatre show called Chef which played at Underbelly in 2014 and transferred to Soho Theatre in June 2015.

Chef won a Fringe First Award and was nominated for the Carol Tambor Best Of Edinburgh New York Award; the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence and the Holden Street Theatre Adelaide Award. The performer was Jade Anouka, who received The Stage Award for Acting Excellence.

In 2014, her play about free speech in Egypt was commissioned by and performed at The National Theatre by young people for the annual National Theatre Connections Festival.

Mahfouz has been a Playwright in Residence at the Bush Theatre; Poet in Residence at Cape Farewell, a Writer at Liberty for Liberty UK and a Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum.

In 2016 Sabrina Mahfouz had a short TV drama piece called Breaking the Code produced by BBC3, BBC Taster and BBC Drama and the following plays written by her were produced in the UK and internationally: With a Little Bit of Luck (Paines Plough); SLUG (nabokov); the love i feel is red (Tobacco Factory Theatre); Caldarium (Theatre Uncut/Teater Grob); SLoW (KVS Brussels); Layla's Room (Theatre Centre) and Battleface (Bush Theatre).^[1]

Books

Poetry

• How You Might Know Me / Full Collection (Out-Spoken Press, 2016)
• Craft of Use by Kate Fletcher / 1 Poem (Routledge, 2016)
• Out-Spoken Anthology 2015 / 3 poems (Out-Spoken Press, 2015)

Playscripts

• Layla's Room (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2016)
• With a Little Bit of Luck (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2016)
• New Monologues for Women edited by Geoffrey Colman / 2 texts (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2016)
• National Theatre Connections Monologues edited by Anthony Banks / 1 text (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2016)
• Audition Speeches for Black, Middle Eastern and South Asian Actors edited by Simelia Hodge-Dalloway / 2 texts (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2016)
• Chef (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2015)
• National Theatre Connections, Plays for Young People edited by Anthony Banks / 1 play (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2014)
• The Clean Collection (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2014)

Fiction

• Here I Stand edited by Amnesty International / 1 story (Walker Books, 2016)

Non-fiction

• The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla / 1 essay (Unbound, 2016)

As editor

• The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write' (Saqi Books, 2017)

Plays

• Battleface (2016, Bush Theatre)
• SLUG (2016, nabakov)
• the love i feel is red (2016, Tobacco Factory Theatres)
• With a Little Bit of Luck (2016, Paines Plough)
• Layla's Room (2016, Theatre Centre)
• Caladarium (2016, Theatre Uncut / Teater Grob)
• Chef (2015, Just for Laughs Theatricals / 2014, P.O.P)
• A Shop Selling Speech (2013, National Theatre Connections)
• Disnatured (2013, Shakespeare in Shoreditch)
• Clean (2013, Traverse Theatre)
• One Hour Only (2012, Made From Scratch Theatre / Old Vic New Voices)
• Dry Ice (2011, SM / 2012, Bush Theatre)

TV

• Railway Nation: A Journey In Verse (BBC TWO / Blast! Films)
• We Belong Here (BBC iPlayer / The Space)
• Breaking the Code (BBC3 / BBC Taster / BBC Drama)

Film

• Alone Together (BBC iPlayer / Decapo)
• Sabrina Mahfouz: Spoken Word (Sky Arts)

Dance

• Rosalind (James Cousins Company)
• I Imagine (Aakash Odedra Company)
• The Dying Swan (Royal Ballet)

Opera

• Paws & Padlocks (Kate Whitley / Blackheath Halls)
• I Am I Say (Kate Whitley)
• The Cruel Cut (Kate Whitley)
• Sancerre (K. Wilmslow / Royal Opera House)

Awards

^[2]

^[3]

^[4]

^[5]

References

Bloomsbury Publishing Website ^[1]

1. ↑ Bloomsbury.com. "The Clean Collection: Plays and Poems". Bloomsbury Publishing.