Entezami Museum to feature 150 years of Iranian theater

TEHRAN,Apr.19(MNA) -- One hundred and fifty years of Iranian theater will be put on display at the Entezami Museum, which is scheduled to open in Tehran on May 17, designer Behruz Gharibpur said on Thursday. “Due to the arrangement of the collections the museum houses, it will take a visitor an hour and a half to tour the museum,” he told the Persian service of MNA. The museum was originally the house of the 89-year-old actor of stage and screen Ezzatollah Entezami. He donated the house to the Tehran Municipality in January 2012 to convert it into a theater museum. The museum contains a large collection of theatrical documents, posters and photos. In addition, busts of a number of figures who were influential in shaping Iranian theater including actress Jamileh Sheikhi, and actors Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, Jafar Vali, Davud Rashidi and Jamshid Mashayekhi have been put on display at the museum. Due to the special design of the museum, the courtyard can host open-air exhibitions and events, Gharibpur said. “The roof of the museum has been designed in the manner of Dowlat Tekyeh (a Qajar era building, which was used for tazieh, Iranian passion play, and seasonal religious ceremonies in Tehran) in order to host meetings on theatrical issues,” he added. “The museum has been designed to make a visitor feel at home… I have tried to create agreement between tradition and modernism in designing the museum. Thus, the facade of the building has architectural elements from the Qajar period (1783-1924) and the interior space has minimalist decorations,” he stated. Located in Qeitarieh neighborhood in northeastern Tehran, the building of the museum dates back about 50 years.