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Cyprus

Aliye Ummanel

The image shows a close-up portrait of the Cypriot poet, playwright and director Aliye Ummanel. Ummanel smiles at the camera and her red curls cover part of her face. The basic tone and light incidence of the photo is red-yellow. © Aliye Ummanel

is a poet, playwright and director living in Cyprus. After graduating from the American Culture and Literature Department at the University of Hacettepe, she obtained her MA degree in Theatre Theory, Criticism and Dramaturgy at the University of Ankara. She has been working as a dramaturge and director at the Nicosia Turkish Municipal Theatre since 2004. She also worked as the Artistic Director between 2017-2021 at the same theatre.

Her plays focus on issues of her generation on the island, especially on past war and its traumas. They deal with themes such as war, memory, displacement. Her plays are staged in Turkish and Greek and performed on both sides of the divided island reaching audiences in both languages. She wrote a Cyprus trilogy titled The Tragedy With Broken Rule of Three Unities. The plays of the trilogy are called Passa Tempo, Kayıp/Missing and Ev/House. Her last play Kapalı/Closed is composed of monologues on displaced people of Varosha. In addition to these, she directed a wide range of plays among which are Birthday Party by Harold Pinter and Orphans by Dennis Kelly. She took part in many productions as a dramaturge since 2004.

Since 2014 she is in charge of the repertoire of Cyprus Theatre Festival organised by Nicosia Turkish Municipality. Furthermore, she participated as a member of selection committee at the Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival in 2019. In 2022 she participated as a member of selection committee of Eurodram, a network for the translation of plays.

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