Host Josafath Reynoso sits down with Tina Torbey, scenic designer and architect from Beirut, Lebanon, now based in London. What begins as a conversation about migration becomes something larger: identity, belonging, motherhood, and what it means to build a career and a life far from everything you know.
They talk about the backup blanket her mother packed for her first night in student housing, nearly losing a National Theatre opportunity to a visa issue, the isolation of new motherhood without a village, being ghosted after mentioning she had a child, and finally arriving at a place where not fitting in any box feels more like freedom than failure.
Tina also shares her work with the London Video Game Orchestra and her upcoming production Blaze FM, at the Lowry Theatre in Salford.
Full episode, shorts & highlights available on Youtube and Spotify
References.
- Roy ElKhouri, Lebanese musical theatre director and choreographer https://royelkhouri.com/
- Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong → https://amzn.to/4vdWhQR
- Blaze FM and the Big House Theatre https://www.thebighousetheatre.com
Timestamps.
- 00:00 – Cold open
- 02:00 – From architecture to theatre
- 07:00 – First night in Cardiff
- 13:00 – Getting into the National Theatre, and almost losing it
- 19:00 – New motherhood without a village
- 27:00 – What is home now?
- 35:00 – Not fitting in any box
- 43:00 – The London Video Game Orchestra
