A poetic, heartbreaking story of intergenerational queer history in Lebanon, The Green Line is a stage play that weaves together civil war Beirut with a contemporary nightclub, following one family’s journey to discover their past.
In the present day, Rami, a twenty-something queer Lebanese Canadian, has returned to the Lebanese mountains to bury his father. To cope with the weight of his grief, Rami, carrying a necklace in the shape of a phoenix left to him by his father, finds himself in a queer Beirut nightclub, where he catches the attention of a powerful drag queen named Fifi, who just so happens to be dressed as a phoenix.
In 1978, in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, Naseeb is attempting to get himself and his sister Mona out of Beirut and into the safety of the mountains. Mona, however, is secretly in love with her classmate, a woman named Yara, and refuses to leave the city. When Naseeb becomes swept up with the descending political culture of the war around him, he creates a rift between himself and Mona greater than the line that divides the country itself.
Makram Ayache’s play The Green Line, translated into English by Hiba Sleiman, was first staged at Arts Commons in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 2022. It was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award and won the Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play in 2022 and the LGBTQ+ Drama Lambda Literary Award in 2025.
‘An affecting, well-written piece by Makram Ayache… that travels to a surprisingly wide variety of places… a universal, first-class play more than worthy of your attention’
— 12thnight
‘A beautifully haunting story that weaves both past and present, and love and loss, into something quietly devastating’
— NEXT Magazine
Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play
LGBTQ+ Drama Lambda Literary Award
