Cast of the Play “Anush” in Cairo, 1944

The photograph was taken on 19 March 1944 in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. It shows members of a local Armenian amateur theatre group who had just finished a performance based on Hovhannes Tumanyan's poem “Anush”.

There are 12 people in the picture, in stage costumes. The man seated on the left holds a violin, and the man seated in the centre wears a crown and holds a sceptre. Their distinctive costumes and facial expressions draw attention.

The photograph is often mistakenly attributed to the United States because it is kept in the Project Save archive in Watertown, Massachusetts, which is devoted to preserving the history of the diaspora.