Naima Zitane is the first female director in Morocco who has been able to make a name for herself through plays which break taboos and upset conventional morals. She was born into a family of five sisters and two brothers in Chefchaouen, to a Chaouni father and a mother from the Rif mountains. She attended the conservatoire and participated in school theatre from the age of 13. Swept along by her great passion, the theatre, she joined the Institut Supérieur d’Art Dramatique et d’Animation Culturelle in Rabat, graduating in 1994.

Inspired by her involvement in women’s associations she created her own association, Théatre Aquarium, in order to carry out social activism in her own way. She converted the living room of her three-room apartment in the centre of Rabat and ensconced the association’s main office there.

But she did not let go of her old dream to set up a local theatre for the under-privileged. Finally, in 2008, the dream became reality — the Théatre Aquarium space was opened in a traditional house in the working-class neighbourhood of Akkari. Since then Naima Zitane, as founder and artistic director, director and playwright, together with her company, have made a name for...