Makram Ayache is a queer Arab Canadian playwright, director, performer and educator who was born in Lebanon, raised in rural Alberta. He now divides his time between Edmonton and Toronto. He received the 2020 Tom Hendry RBC Emerging Playwright Award and is the winner of the 2021/2022 Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play. Ayache earned a B.Ed. from the University of Alberta.
Drama
The Green Line
Translated by Hiba Sleiman.
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2024.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
A poetic, heartbreaking story of intergenerational queer history in Lebanon, The Green Line weaves together civil war Beirut with a contemporary nightclub, following one family’s journey to discover their past.
In the present day, Rami, a twentysomething queer Lebanese Canadian, has returned to the Lebanese mountains to bury his father. To cope with the weight of his grief, Rami, carrying a necklace in the shape of a phoenix left to him by his father, finds himself in a queer Beirut nightclub, where he catches the attention of a powerful drag queen named Fifi, who just so happens to be dressed as a phoenix.
In 1978, in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, Naseeb is attempting to get himself and his sister Mona out of Beirut and into the safety of the mountains. Mona, however, is secretly in love with her classmate, a woman named Yara, and refuses to leave the city. When Naseeb becomes swept up with the descending political culture of the war around him, he creates a rift between himself and Mona greater than the line that divides the country itself.
Awards and Honours
2024 Governor General’s Literary Awards–Drama, English (Finalist)