In 2006, right before the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, young actress Maya Zbib (now 36) and fellow artists founded the Zoukak Theatre Company in Beirut, and started using the tools of drama therapy and psychosocial interventions, working with displaced children and women in schools from the south of Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
  This was followed in 2008 by Zoukak opening a studio which served ever since in part as a free-access space for practical and critical exchange and as a rehearsal and creation space for local performing artists. It also provides space for the Theatre Company to explore the use of drama therapy. In the studio, Zoukak staff conduct workshops on performance, dance and education as well as providing training courses in drama therapy. The space also provides residencies for creation for artists invited from overseas.

  As part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, in 2010-2011 Zbib was mentored by American theater and opera director Peter Sellars and received valuable experience. They have developed a strong and lasting professional relationship.
  There are said to be over two million refugees in Lebanon. Zoukak continues to offer psychosocial support to Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi and Sudanese refugees, and to women subjected to domestic violence, with the goal, as outlined by Zbib, of “empowering individuals, and allowing them to relate to themselves and to society.”
Aside from this psychosocial work, Zoukak is a Theatre Company that creates their own productions – often based on themes connected to their context.
  They see that the official version of Lebanese history taught in schools stops at the end of the French mandate and does not cover the Lebanese civil war and other parts of Lebanese contemporary history. So they have created a performance based on oral recollections of Lebanese history which has now toured villages all across Lebanon. They have given the performance extra meaning by creating a forum for the audience to be able to explore what history means from various vantage points on stage after the performance.
  Last April, Zoukak received its first grant from the Drosos Foundation in Switzerland, to be paid out over four years, and have used it to expand the Theatre Company’s headquarters. In addition to studio and rehearsal spaces, they will open a 100-seat theater this November. In the future, the company plans to use revenue from the theatre to fund their own operations.
  Ms. Zbib says, “We are now in a new phase of the company. We want to offer young people the chance to share our tools of theater making and psychosocial intervention techniques and develop a young audience.”
Zoukak has a small team of 25 members in all. At its creative heart is Ms. Zbib, along with Lamia Abi Azar, Omar Abi Azar, Junaid Sarieddine, Hashem Adnan, Mohamad Hamdan and Soumaya Berri, all in their 30s.
As the Lebanese government does not support the Arts financially, annual operating expenses all have to be covered by external funding. Although the amount varies from year to year, it is between 80,000 and 200,000 dollars.