Mona El Yafi is a post-graduate diploma in philosophy, actress for theatre and cinema, author and stage director within the company Diptyque Théâtre which she co-directs with Ayouba Ali. Together with authors Léonore Confino, Dominique Chryssoulis and stage director Véronique Bellegarde, she is a co-founder of the Collectif Créature which aims at questioning the place of women in contemporary theatre, through the representation of female characters in fiction.
As an author, in 2013 she co-wrote Bad little bubble B by Laurent Bazin (Jury Prize at the Festival Impatience), and in 2014 wrote her first play Inextinguishable – hence beginning a cycle on the question of desire. In this context, she created the performances Seven Deadly Sins (from 2016 to 2020) and wrote the play Desirium Tremens (2017). In 2019, she wrote Aveux, exploring the desire to speak in a legal context (Prix Bourse Jean Guerrin). In 2020, she wrote with Céline Clergé My name is Alice or The words of the little girls, which won the Collectif Jeune public des Hauts-de-France Award. Mona El Yafi performed in those plays’ stage adaptation by Ayouba Ali.
In 2019, she signed Hernani on Air, based on Victor Hugo, a commission by Audrey Bonnefoy. The same year she started her collaboration with Fouad Boussouf, director of the National Centre for Choreography du Havre, as a playwright for his pieces Oüm, Yës, then Cordes et Âmes.
In 2023, she wrote Les Crampons / Hommage à Justin Fashanu (Finalist of Réel Enjeu, Winner of La Croisée – professional network in Hauts-de-France) and received a new commission from Audrey Bonnefoy – an adaptation of The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais, as well as a commission from Ali Esmili for Fidélité(s) ou la Panenka de Hakimi, a project co-produced by the three National Drama Centres of Nancy, Lorient and Thionville.
Her text En fêtes is selected for La Mousson d’hiver 2023, and Standing in Beirut / Exterior Night – first step in writing My Night in Beirut is programmed at La Mousson d’été 2023.
After having been an associated author at La Faïencerie, scène conventionnée de Creil, she is in 2022 and again in 2024-25 the guest author of the Comédie de Picardie, scène conventionnée d’Amiens. She participates in literary balls (designed by Fabrice Melquiot) and regularly works with student authors with the Collectif du Libre acteur (Paris). She has been an associated artist at La Manekine – Scène intermediate des Hauts-de-France since 2017 and at the City of Saint Quentin (Aisne) since 2019.
She collaborates regularly with other artists as a playwright and actor director. After having been the artistic collaborator to Ayouba Ali’s stage direction on five productions, My Night in Beirut (premiere scheduled in January 2025) will be the first production that she has directed alone. She is invited to participate to the Théâtrales by ETC Caraibes with the same text in November 2024.
My night in Beirut
A Lebanese man goes back to Beirut in order to renew his passport. Elsewhere, this would be a simple administrative formality.
But in a country ravaged by the aftermath of war and an unprecedented economic crisis, the simple formality becomes an ordeal. One night, two nights, three nights standing in darkness and an ever-growing crowd whose silhouettes are swept by the headlights of cars driving on the nearby road.
So the man dances. And Aida, her compatriot and friend, recounts.
