Khawla Ibraheem is a Golan Heights–born, award-winning multidisciplinary theatre-maker, writer, director, and actor, whose work blends intimate storytelling with urgent questions of memory, displacement, and belonging.
She holds a degree in Theatre from Haifa University and has built a career across writing, directing, and performance.
Her most notable works include London–Jenin, which won Best Text and Best Direction at the Palestine Theatre Festival in 2019, Soon to Be Gone, which tells the story of a displaced Syrian Druze woman returning to her homeland, and the family musical The Story Keeper, all of which she wrote and directed. She also directed the Arabic version of Florian Zeller’s The Father, celebrated by audiences for its emotional depth and resonance.
Her most acclaimed work is A Knock on the Roof, a solo play she wrote and performs, developed and directed by Oliver Butler and produced by piece by piece Productions. The play premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024, where it received some of the festival’s most prestigious honors, including the Scotsman Fringe First Award, the Filipa Bragança Award for solo performance, the Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Award, and the Besties’ Heart Award, as well as being a finalist for the BBC Popcorn Writing Award.
In 2025, A Knock on the Roof was presented at New York’s Under the Radar Festival before joining the official season at Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop. The production earned Ibraheem a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Show, a nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance at the Outer Critics Circle Awards, and recognition from the Drama Desk Awards. Later that year, it was staged at London’s Royal Court Theatre, cementing her international acclaim and establishing her as a vital voice in contemporary theatre.
