The Mehr Theatre Group was founded in 1996 in Shiraz, Iran, as an acting workshop seeking a new theatrical language, distinct from traditional forms and strongly influenced by cinema. Based in Paris since 2008 and administered by French producer Pierre Reis, the company works between Tehran and exile, bringing together artists inside and outside Iran and regularly collaborating with non-Iranian designers and composers.
Led by writer-director Amir Reza Koohestani – whose academic work in Manchester focused on post-9/11 documentary theatre – with long-time collaborator and playwright Mahin Sadri, and Iranian production manager and actor Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh, the Mehr Theatre Group creates text-driven, documentary-inspired pieces that combine personal archives, interviews and everyday documents with a precise, minimalist staging. Since working in German theatres, Koohestani has developed a distinctive use of live PTZ “surveillance” cameras, allowing images from the stage to be framed and recomposed in real time. Memory, testimony and the feeling of living between two worlds – past and present, homeland and elsewhere – run through all of Mehr’s productions, even when they are based on classics such as Ivanov.
Mehr’s internationally known works – including Dance on Glasses, Timeloss, Hearing, En Transit and Blind Runner – have toured to major festivals such as Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Holland Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Festival d’Avignon, Festival d’Automne à Paris, La Biennale di Venezia, Under The Radar, etc. and the company has received multiple awards in Iran, including Best Theatre Company (2010), as well as several national and international prizes for its productions.