EYAD HOUSSAMI (LEBANON) works in theatre as a director, writer, and researcher. A Yale graduate and a Fulbright alumnus, he hosts Theatre of Desire, a monthly open performance cabaret inspired by his mentor Deb Margolin, in his home in Beirut. His most recent production credits include A Moment of Silence for the Shuhada' of Iraq, a performance art piece in the Dead Cities in northern Syria, and an original Arabic-French monodrama, Mama Butterfly, which was shut down by the government five hours before the opening in Damascus. His writing on theatre and contemporary culture has been published in Ecumenica Journal, The National, Bidoun, Dictionnaire des créatrices (forthcoming), and leading English dailies in Lebanon. He is also featured in the New York Theatre Review (2009). He has presented his research on performance in the Levant at international conferences around the world, and he is currently working on Doomed by Hope, a collection of Arabic-English essays on contemporary theatre and performance that brings together the cultural and intellectual expressions of the vast and nuanced field of Arab theatre. Houssami is co-editing the collection with scholars Drs. Marie Elias (Damascus), Marvin Carlson (NYC), and Nehad Selaiha (Cairo). Doomed by Hope is a Prince Claus Fund Library project. For The Internationalists, he has facilitated the staging of contemporary Arab theatre, including Women of War (Iraq) by Jawad al Assadi which was presented in ‘Around the World in 24 Hours’.