Vanessa Redgrave to Star in A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman at Columbia University

Tony Award winner Vanessa Redgrave will direct herself in a special two-night engagement of A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman, a play she also co-wrote with Mariam C. Said. The production will run at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre on November 28 and 29 and will be presented by the Public Theater.

A World I Loved tracks the life of an Arab woman whose own journey as a student, teacher and principal in a Beirut girls’ school weaves itself into the greater narrative of the politically tumultuous Lebanon in the 20th century. The play is based on the memoirs of Wadad Makdisi Cortas (the mother of co-playwright Said).

In addition to starring Redgrave as Narrator, the play features Najla Said (Cortas’ granddaughter) and Nadim Sawalha, as well as musicians Steven Bentley-Klein, Sary Khalife, Sofya Melikyan and the Spence Middle School Chorus.

Redgrave earned a Tony Award for Long Day's Journey Into Night and additional nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy. She received an Academy Award for Julia and nominations for Howard's End, The Bostonians, Mary, Queen of Scots, Isadora and Morgan!