Fizza Hasan is a Pakistani theatre director, actor, trainer, and educationist, best known as the Founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Wallay, a performing arts company based in Islamabad. Active in the fields of theatre and education for over three decades, she has worked extensively to promote cultural exchange, social change, and arts-based education across Pakistan.
Early Life and Education
Fizza Hasan completed her A Levels in 1988. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kinnaird College, Lahore in 1990, majoring in English Literature and Geography. She later pursued a Master’s degree in French from the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad in 1995, followed by a second Master’s in the Teaching of French as a Foreign Language from Université Stendhal, Grenoble, France, in 1999.
Career
Theatre Work
In 2005, Hasan founded Theatre Wallay, which has since become one of Pakistan’s leading theatre collectives. As Artistic Director since 2011, she has led numerous original and adapted productions, often collaborating with international cultural institutions and donor agencies. Her responsibilities include programming, directing, acting, writing, training, managing budgets, and handling organizational development.
Some major theatre projects under her management include:
- The Hifazat Theatre for Social Change (UNFPA and SoLF, 2023–24)
- Antigone by Jean Anouilh (French Embassy, 2023)
- The Blind and Interior by Maeterlinck (Belgian Embassy, 2023)
- The School for Wives by Molière (French Embassy, 2019)
- The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht (Heinrich Böll Stiftung, 2018)
- Zard Patton ka Ban as part of On Common Ground (US State Department and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2016–18)
- Dagh Dagh Ujala (This Stained Dawn), a devised performance on the Partition of India (Ithaca College and US Embassy, 2015)
- Deewar Ke Uss Paar (Karuna Centre for Peace and Critical Connections USA, 2016)
- Transforming Lives of Adolescents (UNICEF, 2016)
As a performer and actor, she has appeared in Urdu adaptations of European classics and devised theatre productions. Her performances include Interior, The Blind, Savage Love, The School for Wives, Tartuffe, and Dagh Dagh Ujala, some of which toured internationally.
Hasan also serves as a theatre trainer and workshop facilitator for children, adolescents, and adults, conducting sessions in schools, universities, vocational centres, and NGOs throughout Pakistan.
Educational Career
In addition to her work in theatre, Hasan has had an extensive teaching career in English Literature and French spanning over two decades. She taught English Literature to O- and A-Level students at several prestigious institutions in Islamabad.
She was also Principal of a leading private school from 2014 to 2016 and served as Director of Studies at Alliance Française d’Islamabad from 2004 to 2011. Her work in language education includes extensive teacher training in French and English, curriculum design, and assessments.
She has also worked in the EdTech space, and is currently working as a content creator for BEAJ Education and as an English and French Language specialist.
Professional Development and Fellowships
Fizza Hasan has attended multiple international training programmes in France and the USA, focusing on education, language pedagogy, and cultural management. She has been a trainer of trainers in teaching French as a foreign language and has facilitated numerous workshops on pedagogy, class management and evaluation techniques.
In 2024, she was selected as a Global Fellow of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA). She was awarded the same fellowship for 2025 and 2026 as well.
Awards and Honours
In 2025, Fizza Hasan was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in recognition of her contributions to the arts and cultural exchange.
Publications and Films
- Uncle Ultay Pultay Plans a Birthday (Children’s book, 2024)
- Morning Assembly – Short story published in I’ll Find My Way (Oxford University Press, 2014)
- Tea or Coffee – Short story published in Karachi: Our Stories in Our Words (Oxford University Press, 2013)
- Appeared in short films Mental Note and Empty (2020–21)
Personal Life
Fizza Hasan resides in Islamabad, Pakistan. She continues to mentor artists and educators while leading Theatre Wallay in creating socially relevant, multilingual, and cross-cultural theatre productions.