Arab Americans

Habib Azar

Habib Azar (born October 19, 1979 in Pennsylvania, USA) is an American film, theater and television director.

Career

Film

Azar’s first feature film Armless was an official selection of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and went on to screen and win awards in festivals around the world. Armlessis an off-kilter comedy about a man who suffers from body integrity identity disorder.^[1]

In 2013 Azar completed photography on his second feature film Saint Janet starring Kelly Bishop. ^[2]

Stage

Azar’s stage work focuses on world premiere and rarely performed contemporary operas. His productions include the world premiere of Lewis Nielson‘s USW with Opera Cabal of Chicago^[3] and the world premiere of Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone with the International Contemporary Ensemble at the Mann Center in Philadelphia.

Azar’s 2007 production of Luigi Nono‘s rarely performed A Floresta e Jovem e Cheja de Vida with the International Contemporary Ensemble toured the US and Mexico and was the subject of an extended analysis in The Drama Review.^[4]

Azar has directed numerous plays including Gorilla Man at PS122.^[5]

Television

In 2013 Azar directed all 8 episodes of the groundbreaking series The All Star Orchestra for PBS. The program gathered principal musicians from major American orchestras to film concert works especially for television.^[6] Other live multi-camera arts specials directed by Azar include Yo-Yo Ma for Live from Lincoln Center, The New York Philharmonic, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the National Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.^[7]

Azar has worked extensively in soap operas, having directed multiple episodes of As the World Turns, The Young and the Restless, All My Children, and One Life to Live. In 2007, Habib Azar won an Emmy Award for directing As the World Turns^[8] and was nominated in 2012 for The Young and the Restless.