Khayaal Theatre Company

Khayaal Theatre Company

At a glance

Causes

  • Arts
  • Black, asian and minority ethnic groups
  • Children / families
  • Education
  • Faith and ethics
  • Museums / heritage

Other details

Geographical remit: 
National - Britain

Objectives

Khayaal (founded 1997) is the world's first professional multi-award-winning English-language theatre company dedicated to the dramatic exploration of Muslim and interfaith literature and the experience of Muslims in the modern world for the stage, film, radio and education. In recent years, Khayaal has expanded the scope of its work by also exploring wisdom tales from Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism as a means of positively influencing interfaith relations in the light of shared humanitarian values.

Our widely respected brand values and bridge-building work have attracted a large culturally diverse national and international (Switzerland, Pakistan, USA, UAE, Sudan and Morocco) audience and multi-sector demand that extends from the grassroots of communities through major cultural institutions (British Museum, Shakespeare’s Globe, Arts Council of England, etc.) and corporations (Bank of England, Barclays, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse, Norton Rose Fulbright, KPMG, etc.) and on to government (Home Office, UK Parliament, Foreign Office, DfE, US State Dept, etc.).

Objectives

(1) To promote inter-cultural and interfaith dialogue, engagement and understanding by demonstrating reconciliation between East and West, the traditional and the modern, and Muslims and people of other faiths and traditions;

(2) To celebrate and contribute the rich aesthetic, artistic and literary traditions and crafts of global Muslim cultures as well as cross-cultural and interfaith stories to mainstream popular culture;

(3) To develop new audiences for the performing arts within Muslim communities and new audiences for Muslim literature, art and culture in wider society;

(4) To assist in developing cultural capital and currency for Muslim communities that will facilitate greater and more inclusive socio-cultural stakeholding and integration and challenge extremism and Islamophobia.

Activities

Impact

  • Muslim audiences respond to our work with an increase feeling of belonging, pride and heightened aspiration, all of which contribute to greater awareness of and confidence in the inclusive resources within their faith and cultural traditions that encourage integration, interfaith and intercultural engagement and bolster contributory citizenship within wider society.
  • Audiences from other faith and secular affiliations respond to our work with high levels of appreciation and gratitude for the opportunity to experience the aesthetics, wisdom, humour and humanity of Muslim cultures in performance made accessible by our work. They also report that our work has broadened their horizons, touched their hearts, dispelled their misconceptions, revived their hope and inspired them to learn more about Muslim cultures and literature.

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