Rania Kurdi, Superstar in Therapy + Q&A

Wednesday 23 September, London

Superstar in Therapy is a solo theatre piece by Rania Kurdi about a former Arab Pop Idol host and chart-topping singer confronting her public persona in the therapist’s chair, told through dark comedy and confessional storytelling. As she navigates fame, identity, sexual miseducation, motherhood, and her recently-diagnosed ADHD, the audience is invited to participate, laugh, recognise themselves, and reflect. The show blends humour, intimacy, and chaos to create a raw, cathartic, unfiltered experience.

Through the figure of a female celebrity in therapy, Rania Kurdi reflects on identity, cultural expectation, and the pressure to perform versions of oneself in order to be accepted.

Q&A panel

The performance will be followed a Q&A panel with Rania Kurdi, the play's Director Vanessa Dodd, Alia Alzougbi, Artistic Director and CEO at Shubbak Festival and Nadia El-Sebai, Executive Director, the Arab British Centre.

The event will be introduced by Fedja Klikovac, Art Director at FAP and Director of Handel Street Projects gallery.

This event is the third in the Foundation for Art & Psychoanalysis series FAP - 10 Years in London, questioning the Feminine and Masculine in the Arab world series.

Please note this is an invitation only event. If you are interested in attending please email info@fap.org.uk

Rania Kurdi

Rania Kurdi is a UK-based performer and writer who creates bold, darkly comedic work that lives at the intersection of identity, belonging, and cultural expectation. Blending autobiographical storytelling with vivid character transformation and socially engaged performance, she crafts theatrical worlds where humour and vulnerability sit side by side — inviting audiences into moments that are at once intimate, unsettling, and deeply human.

British-Jordanian by heritage, Rania trained at the Guildford School of Acting and brings over thirty years of performance experience across theatre, television, music, and voice work in the United Kingdom and the Arab world. Her early career included hosting Pan Arab Pop Idol, alongside writing and producing original work for stage and screen, including The Rania Show, a socially sharp comedy sketch show for Jordanian television. The series was later included in academic study at Stanford University for its distinctive portrayal of Arab culture. She subsequently evolved the project into a social media awareness campaign in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), using performance and satire to amplify conversations around sexual and reproductive health and personal agency.

This full-length solo theatre work marks a new chapter in her artistic journey — an extension of her wider practice as a performer, coach, and changemaker. Across her work, Rania creates theatrical spaces where contradiction is embraced, emotional truth is centre stage, and lived experience becomes narrative material.

Through storytelling, embodiment, humour, and raw vulnerability, she explores identity, ambition, societal expectations, and healing — not as abstract themes, but as realities carried in the body, voiced on stage, and shared in real time with an audience.

Director - Vanessa Dodd

Vanessa Dodd trained as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and in directing from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. As a theatre director, she specialises in performer-led work and new writing, with a long-standing interest in how theatre can give shape to inner lives. Her practice blends rigorous story development with collaborative rehearsal processes that centre the performer’s voice. Her recent work includes productions with Theatr Blodeu (a neuro diverse company) and a range of small-scale, research-led performance projects. With a background in applied drama and interdisciplinary theatre, she is drawn to work that is emotionally intelligent and formally curious. She supports Superstar in Therapy as a collaborative, performer-centred process exploring vulnerability, voice and connection.