Bethlehem Calling – Young people’s stories, live music and pipers from Palestine.
**** – The List
**** – The Skinny
In 2000, a group of Palestinian teenagers living in Bethlehem were asked to record their experiences by their English teacher, Suzy Atallah, at The Terra Sancta School for Girls Sisters of St Joseph. The diaries the girls wrote are a vivid and remarkable historical document, mixing everyday observations about teenage friendship and Backstreet Boys fandom with accounts of homes being destroyed and family members being killed.
Raeda Ghazaleh worked with the girls to put their diaries on stage in 2002. Later, she took the girls’ writing to be performed as a verbatim theatre piece on stage in London. The Bethlehem Diaries was staged by Ghazaleh as a reading at the Royal Court Theatre and then as a production in the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) with four different international actresses including current collaborator Zoë Hunter.
In winter 2023, Zoë Hunter reconnected with Raeda Ghazaleh with the aim of revisiting and updating the project, working with a team of musicians to bring the diaries back to the stage and adding leading Scottish theatre director Ben Harrison who has previously worked in Palestine. “Lots of arts organisations are not touching anything Palestinian because they’re worried about being criticised for it,” explains Hunter. “But the music industry has been doing fundraisers and speaking out and is not afraid to call out the obvious. I thought, why not do something that mixes these young women’s testimony with something that’s musical?”
Bethlehem Calling is a project driven by hope, connection, and solidarity. The hope is that it will be the start of a journey of international collaboration for these talented young artists, and that they can continue making work together in the future.
Production Credits
Creative Team
Zoë Hunter: Project Leader and Co-Producer
Natalie Richardson: Co-Producer
Ben Harrison: Co-Director
Raeda Ghazaleh: Co-Director
Dav Bernard: AV Designer
Simon Wilkinson: Lighting Designer
Mirna Sakhleh: Performer, original diary writer
Hala Jaber: Performer / Musician, original diary writer
Hana Greer: Performer
Yolanda Mitchell: Performer
Aisha Lawal: Performer
Paul Thomson: Lead Musician
Chizu Anucha: Musician
Firas Khnaisser: Musician
Lewis Cook: Musician
Roque Salah: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Issa Musallam: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Martin Fackusse: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Andres Zeidan: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Nabeel Shaer: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Majd Khalilieh: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Bishara Kafati: Musician (Beit Jala Scouts)
Charlie Zeidan: Beit Jala Scout Leader
Graphic designer: Nathan Thomas Jones
Isa Gordon: Support Act
Production Team
Nick Millar: Production Manager
Katy Walsh: Sound Engineer
Iain Pearson: Sound & AV Technician
Katharina Siebert: Deputy Stage Manager
Lucy May Wilson: Assistant Stage Manager
Karin Anderson: Programmer
Karen Forbes: BSL interpreter
Dougal Perman: Live Feed
Andy Brown: Lead Camera Team (UK)
James Allan: Camera operator (UK)
Christian-Alexandru Popa: Camera operator (UK)
Ibrahim Handal: Camera operator & Live Feed (Palestine)
Andrew Eaton Lewis: Press Officer
Jess Shurte:Photographer (https://jessshurtephotography.co.uk/)
This show is supported by Creative Scotland, Celtic Connections & The British Council.
Thanks to: The Terra Sancta School for Girls Sisters of St Joseph Bethlehem (& all the teenage girls who have written diaries for the project), The Arab Orthodox Scout Troop of Beit Jala, Gary Holding, Sam Eccles, Donald Shaw, MP Gordon McKee, Tiernan Kelly & Film City, National Theatre of Scotland, Nicholas Bone, Shahida MacDougall, John Handal, Khaled Ghawali (Scout Leader), Nicola McCartney, La Chunky Studios, Kenneth Thomson at T-shirtcat, Peaceful Dove Press, Berkeley 2 Studios, A Giant On A Bridge team, David Myles and the Glasgow – Bethlehem Twinning Association, all at Tramway and everyone else who has contributed to supporting the making of this production.
Special thanks to Arab Ambience and UNWRA for permission to use the film A Decade of Illegality.