As the stage lights came up at Haya Cultural Center, Saif felt nervous preparing to deliver his opening line as the fork in Kitchen Tales. It was 2021 and his first time on stage. Despite those initial nerves, he felt “happy and accomplished after the first performance – and the fear of performing became smaller and smaller.”

Saif is one of several thousand Sudanese refugees living in Amman. Their community faces huge barriers accessing work and education, as minority refugee groups in Jordan are barred from work permits. 

Through that first play, and others that have followed, Saif describes a growing sense of family within the Seenaryo community. He has made friends with people who he would never have come across otherwise. He mentions Faisal, a Syrian boy who he met on the set of Cats in 2024, who has become a close friend.

Art is a way to bring us together as a community. Sometimes the plays and their topics can solve problems we are facing.

As Saif’s confidence has grown over the years, he’s taken on larger roles – from the fork, to a young married man and a commanding eagle – and has begun supporting facilitators behind the scenes. Performing to an audience of 350 people in Amman last year marked a turning point. He noticed how much his confidence had grown since that first performance in 2021.

I’m less easily embarrassed and much more comfortable in front of others.

Standing on stage as the eagle in Cats, he said he started to feel like an artist for the first time. He now dreams of studying filmmaking, which he’s drawn to because of the intimacy of cinema. He says, “I like that you see people’s emotions more clearly – like when people cry, you see their tears.”