Media Archive

In the wake of the February announcement of a $100-million gift that would anchor creation of a new facility for the Harvard-affiliated American Repertory Theater (ART) in Allston, the selection of the architect for the project was disclosed today.

The American Repertory Theater has hired British architecture firm Haworth Tompkins to design the new theater it’s planning on Harvard University’s Allston campus.

“Celebration and resistance…are communal acts. The act of the revolution, all these people coming together to resist, or to overthrow, and then coming together to celebrate.”

Love. Music. Freedom. These are the universal themes at the heart of “We Live in Cairo…” Set during the January 25 Revolution, the 2011 uprising in Egypt, the work…celebrates the hope and exuberance of the uprising, even as it acknowledges the turmoil that has followed.

EDGE: This play really is an homage to the young people in Egypt, and all over the world, who dare to stand up and face off with the powers that be in order to advocate for themselves and their future. Is that something you each can personally relate to in some way?

When they first began writing the play, Daniel and Patrick were 19 and 23 respectively. They wanted to capture this very seminal, inspiring moment of revolution in Egypt. As Lebanese Americans who grew up celebrating Arab culture, they sought to create a play that would combat the negative, post-9/11 portrayal of the Middle East in the Western media.

The initial inspiration for the musical came when Patrick Lazour saw a photograph…published in The New York Times [that] shows Egyptian youths gathered around a glowing laptop during the Arab Spring. “They were our age, risking their lives,” Daniel Lazour said.