Arby Ovanessian was born on February 20, 1942 in Jolfa, Isfahan.

He finished his high school education majoring in Math at Armenian High School.

In 1961, he founded the theatrical group Armen with his classmates.

“A pioneer of new directions in Iranian theatre and cinema, is one of the most vigorous and dominant artists of the modern era.”

He says Shahin Sarkisian called him his stage designer when Arby designed something simple for one of his plays.

He then officially became the stage designer of his group. After the sudden death of Shahin Sarkisian at age fifty two, the group asked Arby to assume the role of director as well.

From 1963 to 1967, Arby studied cinema in London, and after a period of continuous viewing of theatrical plays in various European cities, returned to Iran.

He intended to make the movie Shohar-e Ahu Khanom (Madam Ahu's Husband | The Husband of Mrs. Ahu), which because of disagreements was left unfinished, and finally was completed by Davoud Molapoor the cinematographer of the film.

In 1972, Arby then made the movie called Cheshmeh (The Spring), which was shown in the Tehran International Film Festival.

In 1969, Arby and others opened the Theatre Workshop to fulfill his goal of supporting those talents who did not have any place in Iran’s conventional theatre.

He then staged a play in the Shiraz Arts Festival called “A Deep, Vast and New Exploration of the Fossils of the Twenty Fifth Geological Period”, written by Abbas Nalbandian.

This play, which many thought would be impossible to perform, won the National Television and Shiraz Arts Festival awards.

The Theatre Workshop continued its activities for many years with its four famous groups: The City Actors, under the supervision of Arby Ovanessian (with participation of actors such as Susan Taslimi), Koocheh (Alley) under the supervision of Esmail Khalaj, Ahreman, managed by Ashur Banipal (with Shohreh Aghdashloo and young Atila Pesyani as its actors) and also the Iraj Anvar Group.

In later years, Arby played an important role in opening and managing Chahar Soo Hall in Tehran’s Theatre Shahr.

When the revolution began, as Susan Taslimi put it, the door to the Theatre Workshop was not only symbolically, but actually boarded up!

Since 1979, Arby has been living in Paris. In 2003, he went to Iran and stayed for a short while to help establish an experimental theatre workshop for Armenians living in Iran. —A Forum on Human Rights and Democracy in Iran