Ohel theater was a pre-state Israeli theater company established in 1925.
Ohel, originally known as the Workers' Theater of Palestine, was established in 1925 as a socialist theater: Members of the company combined theater work with farming and industrial labor. The theater's first production was an adaptation of stories by the Hebrew writer I.L. Peretz. In 1927, it staged Dayagim ("Fishermen"), a socialist play about the exploitation of fishermen by entrepreneurs.[1]
Set designers who worked with the company in its early years were European-trained painters and architects, among them architect Aryeh Elhanani, expressionist painter Israel Paldi and Menachem Shemi.[2]
On a successful European tour in 1934, Ohel staged biblical and national plays. When the company returned to Palestine, it produced "The Good Soldier Schweik" (1935), one of its most successful offerings. In 1961, Ohel staged a comedy by Ephraim Kishon, Ha-Ketubbah ("The Marriage Contract"), which played for three seasons.[3]
In 1964, under a new artistic director, Peter Frye, the company performed Ammekha by Scholem Aleichem, plays by Ionesco, Brecht, and young British playwrights. The theater closed in 1969.[4]