Mike Najem

Harnessed into the wings of the flying machine above the ensemble, at dusk — Invention: Da Vinci's Dream · dir. Boris Konstantinov · Moscow, 2025

Raised in Arabic and French, schooled in English and trained in Russian, at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts in St Petersburg, where text acting, mask and object manipulation are taught as one craft. I want to tell important stories about ordinary people, and I build them light: simple visual language, so the weight arrives through what an audience already knows rather than through what the stage depicts.

Moscow · 2025

Invention: Da Vinci's Dream

Leo, the lead

Direction: Boris Konstantinov
Company: First International Obraztsov Puppetry School
Form: Outdoor, site-specific synthetic theatre on two scaffold towers

Raising the bird puppet high from a wooden machine, the forest behind

Cloth birds in the air, the ensemble reaching for them at dusk

The company building the bird's skeleton around him from white rods

The skeleton of white rods at full stretch, the company bracing it on the slope

Lying on the grass in a paper beak, white rods laid out around the body

Seated at the centre as the company in beaked masks closes in

Lifted up the scaffold tower by the company's raised hands

Carried horizontally across the scaffolding by the company

The instrument, a beaked mask of bones, raised above the company

Hands open above a draped table, the ensemble bent in around it

Flags above the scaffold tower, a figure lifted in the foreground

Photographs · Iya Konstantinova

St Petersburg · 2026

The Servant of Two Masters

Doctor Lombardi, il Dottore

Author: Carlo Goldoni
Production: RGISI diploma production

The masked Dottore holding a young man who leans his head into his chest

The company craning in a line, the masked dottore at the centre

The carved leather half-mask pushed up over one eye, the actor's own mouth live beneath it

The mask portrait · Yuetian Vision

St Petersburg · 2026

Platonov

Isak Abramovich Vengerovich

Author: Anton Chekhov
Production: RGISI diploma production

Standing still in a navy three-piece as another man gestures toward him

Pulling on a jacket mid-alarm, a woman in white reacting beside him

Black and white portrait in costume, half-smiling, the company behind

Black-and-white photograph · Yuri Kalenov

St Petersburg · 2026

Zabolotsky. Columns

The Poet and the Meta-Infant

Author: After Nikolai Zabolotsky
Production: RGISI diploma production
Festival: First All-Russian Youth Theatre Festival “School of Puppetry”, Yaroslavl, 2026

Arms flung up under blue light, figures in white paper costumes looking up from the haze below

St Petersburg · 2026

The Singing Mask

“I'm an Ordinary Man”, from My Fair Lady

Competition: XXI Vocal Competition & Festival
Result: Second Prize, Songs of Theatre and Film

Full length in a grey suit under purple light, pointing at the audience mid-song

Kneeling behind an upturned chair, holding it by the back

Also performed

St Petersburg · 2026

Little Tragedies

In full mask

Alexander Pushkin · RGISI diploma production · selected for the XVII All-Russian Youth Theatre Festival “The Future of Theatrical Russia”, Yaroslavl, 2026

Writing · essays 2021–2024

Lying on a basement floor beside a suitcase, in a shaft of light from the window above

2024 · A multimedia text

Ice Cream with Cigarettes

An Anatomy of Disappointment

Published in English · Arabic · Russian · French Photograph: concept Mike Najem, taken by Polina Sigitova

Read it in four languages

2023The Neva Never Lies: love and an early identity crisisEN · AR

2022When is the world meant to end?EN · AR

2021Thoughts from a layover in IstanbulEN · AR

The record

Portrait against a dark ground, direct to camera

Training: RGISI, St Petersburg. Specialist degree in Acting Arts, 2026, after two years in the institute's directing programme.
Languages: Arabic (native) · French · English · Russian
Skills: Mask · object manipulation · dance · stage movement · stage combat · singing · intercultural facilitation
Contact: najmmike@gmail.com
+961 71 670 957
Beirut, Lebanon