Introduction
Nidal Al Achkar (born 1934) is a Lebanese actress and theater director, "the grande dame of Lebanese theater".
Life
Nidal Al Achkar was the daughter of Asad al-Achkar, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party politician. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. In 1967 she directed her first play in Beirut, and went on to found the Beirut Theatre Workshop in the late 1960s.
After the Lebanese Civil War, Nidal Al Achkar founded the Al Medina Theater in 1994, restoring the building which housed the old Saroulla Cinema.
Nidal Al Achkar received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2012 Murex d'Or. Presenting the award, Lebanese Minister of Culture Gabi Layyoun called her "Lebanon's true expression of enlightenment and culture".
In a 2019 interview she warned that it was impossible to have theater in the Arab world without "real, transformative revolutions" which would allow freedom of speech and openness.