Carmen Nasr’s National Theatre debut, a new play about a Damascus revolutionary followed from London in 2011, opens in the Dorfman with May Calamawy in the title role.
Carmen Nasr’s new play Samira opens in the Dorfman at the National Theatre on the South Bank on Thursday 4 February 2027. May Calamawy, the Bahrain-born actor of Ramy and Moon Knight, plays the title role.
The play is set in Damascus in 2011, as protests fill the streets. A young woman at the heart of the movement sends out an unfiltered, funny and radical account of the revolution as it happens.
Thousands of miles away, London academics follow her story in real time, until she disappears. The play turns on the distance between a revolution and its audience, and on what the watchers believe they are owed.
Nasr, a British-Lebanese writer, made her name with Dubailand at the Finborough in 2018, about migrant labour. The Climbers, on colonial history, followed at Theatre by the Lake in 2022. Her adaptation of Babak Anvari’s Iranian horror film Under the Shadow played the Almeida in 2026.
Samira is her debut at the house, part of Indhu Rubasingham’s first season as artistic director. Emily Burns, who directed Dear Octopus there, directs.
Joshua McGuire plays Dan and Sirine Saba plays Rana, in a production designed by Frankie Bradshaw.