Halil İzmirli
Founder and General Art Director of Pier Sahne; playwright, director, instructor and actor.
Biography
He was born in İzmir in 1967 and completed his education in İzmir.
In 1999, he studied theater at Balçova Public Education Center and took his first step onto the stage. After completing his work there, he founded Tiyatro Arkadaş Gösteri Sanatları and continued his acting career with the company. “Çakıltaşları,” staged there, was the first play written and directed by Halil İzmirli.
In 2004, he founded a Youth Theater in Balçova and enabled eight different plays to be staged. He then founded Balçova Municipal Theater, where he helped thousands of people discover theater and take the stage.
In 2007, he established his own arts center in Küçükyalı, naming it Tiyatro Arkadaş Gösteri Sanatları Merkezi.
In 2011, he moved his stage to Bahçelievler and continued his artistic work there. By the end of 2011, alongside his activities at Tiyatro Arkadaş Gösteri Sanatları Merkezi, he continued to lead the Karabağlar Municipality Children's and Adult Theater and the İzmir SMMO Theater Group.
During his 27-year theater journey, he wrote nearly seventy plays for adults and children. In 2012 and 2014, he was honored with the Best Playwright of the Year Award for “Seni Seviyorum İrina.” He toured more than 50 cities across Türkiye, and his plays were also staged in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Between 2017 and 2020, İzmirli continued his artistic work in Istanbul, where he directed ensembles and wrote screenplays.
In 2024, together with a group of fellow actors, he founded Pier Sahne Gösteri Sanatları Merkezi at Konak Pier Shopping Center. Toward the end of 2025, guided by the idea of a more independent theater, he moved the company to an old stone building in the Kemeraltı district.
Over a theater career spanning nearly 30 years, he has written close to 70 plays, directed hundreds of productions and trained thousands of actors. He has also acted in various television series and films, appearing as a principal cast member in more than 20 of them.
In 2015, alongside his theater work, he began acting in television series and films and has appeared as a principal cast member in more than 20 projects.
He currently serves as General Art Director of Pier Sahne Gösteri Sanatları Merkezi.