Two plays garnered the most awards at the 13th National Theatre Festival, which closed on 2 January.

The plays are Afrah Al-Qobba (Wedding Song), staged by the Youth Theatre Company, and Al-Motafael (The Optimist), performed by the National Theatre Company.

Afrah Al-Qobba won Best Performance, Best Director, and Best Dramaturgy.

The Best Actor in a leading role award went to Abdel-Moneim Riad, while George Ashraf was awarded Best Actor in a supporting role. Yasmine Wafi won the Best Rising Actress award.

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The play was directed by Mohamed Youssef El-Mansour and produced by the Youth Theater Company.

Based on a 1981 novel by Egyptian Nobel Prize winning Naguib Mahfouz, the story of Afrah-Al-Qobba is about the life of a theatre troupe in Al-Qobba neighborhood.

Sarhan, the producer and owner of the fictitious theater, offers the actors a new text written by Abbas, son of the prompter, Karam Younes. The actors discover that the play they are about to perform traces their own lives on stage, as it reveals their secrets, their intimate relationships, and their scandals.

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Al-Motafael, a play produced by the National Theatre Company, won the Special Jury Prize for actor Sahar El-Saigh, Best Poetry for Tariq Ali, Best Scenography for Diaa Shafik, and Best Music for Hisham Gabr.

The play is based on Voltaire's Candide, and is directed and adapted for theatre by Eslam Emam.

The play is among the most successful theatre plays of the last season, with several reruns as well as performances held outside Cairo.

The 13th National Theatre Festival opened on 20 December 2020 and was scheduled to run until 4 January 2021. Due to the increase of COVID-19 infections across Cairo, the festival's closing ceremony was moved to Saturday 2 January.

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