Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance

Ashot Babayan, 20th Century Armenian Playwright

Born Ashot Babayan on September 15, 1911, by the age of 20 Babayan had become an actor with the Armenian State Theater of the Northern Caucasus. Among his acting roles were Othello and the leads in Sunkukian’s Bebo and Baronian’s Brother Balthazar. He began writing plays as early as 1936, collaborating with his nephew Aram on his first full-length play, The Great Wedding, in 1944. When Aram died shortly thereafter, Ashot combined their two names, calling himself Aramashot Babayan. During this period he also served in the Soviet Army (1942-43) and later studied at Yerevan University (1947-49), graduating from the Maxim Gorki Institute of Literature in Moscow in 1951. Although in early life he had been deported from his native land and experienced hard times, Babayan’s natural gift for comedy survived and flourished. Altogether he wrote more than two dozen plays. He is a well-known and much-produced playwright in Armenia, and his plays have also been produced in many cities outside Armenia, including Tbilisi, Moscow, Baku, Nicosia, Beirut, Aleppo, Sofia, and New York.

PLAYS

THE DREAM, 1936

OUR STRUGGLE IS JUST, 1941

THE GREAT WEDDING, 1944

BE NICE, I’M DEAD (Kna meri, ari sirem), translated by Nishan Parlakian, 1990

THE OVERSEAS FIANCE

THE WORLD IS TOPSY TURVY