The Everyman will host the opening event of this year’s Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF), with a two-night run of Queens of Syria, a ground-breaking theatre piece created and performed by female Syrian refugees. The production mixes the real-life experiences of the refugees with Euripides’ classic anti-war tale, The Trojan Women, and will be performed on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th July.

First staged in Amman in 2013 and the subject of an award-winning documentary, Queens of Syria is an extraordinary piece of multimedia theatre. Performed by an all-female cast, the production skilfully amalgamates the women’s own narratives of bitter exile and ferocious war into the ancient Greek text. Footage from the documentary is fused with the stage play for the first time to create a powerful and unique piece of theatre.