Riad Ismat

Mohammad Riad Hussain Ismat (11 July 1947 – 13 May 2020) after years of teaching at the same institution.

In 2003, Ismat became Director General of Syrian State Radio and Television, then held the post of Syrian Vice-Minister of Culture. In 2005, he was appointed Ambassador to Pakistan and, in 2010, Syrian Ambassador to Qatar. In October 2010, he was appointed Minister of Culture, serving in that post until 23 June 2012. From 2013 to 2014, he was a Buffett Center Visiting Scholar at Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois.

Theatre Ismat directed more than 15 theatrical productions, including interpretations of Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and Frank Wedekind, as well as producing his own personal vision of The Arabian Nights. He founded the first mime troupe in Syria and taught mime, acting and directing at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus. There, he taught the Stanislavsky-based method of acting.

Publications Ismat published 35 books, including short stories and several books on Arab and World drama. He also wrote a book on the Nobel Prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz and a book on cinema. As a television script writer, he wrote the scripts for seven television serials and directed his own television trilogy for Syrian TV, The Artist & Love, 1985.

Death Ismat died from COVID-19 in Evanston, Illinois, on 13 May 2020, at age 72, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Illinois.