(Lebanon) Nidal Al-Ashkar is a Lebanese artist who played a leading role in launching the theater movement in Lebanon and the Arab world, with the aim of renewing its horizons, its dialect and its instruments. Actor and director, Nidal Al-Ashkar, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). She founded, with a group of artists, “The Beirut Theatre Workshop” in the late 1960s. In the mid-70s, she established from Amman-Jordan, the “Arab Actors” theatre company; it was the first troupe of artists found from 13 Arab countries. The “Actors” took its craft to many countries in the region, crowning its tours in London’s Royal Albert Hall. Nidal Al-Ashkar participated in many lectures, discussions, conferences, and seminars concerning cultural issues, including, theatre, social, political, gender, and the arts. Member of several Arab and international juries for theatre, movie and showbiz events, she received several national and international honors, most notably by the French Government, as a Knight of Arts and Letters, in 1997, as well as high cultural honors from the Tunisian president. In 1994, after renovating a historic cinema in Beirut and making it available to Lebanese civil society, she established there a cultural centre, Masrah Al-Madina, which quickly became the epicenter for cultural and artistic events in Beirut.