Lebanon had only one theater group in Beirut prior to Fazlian's creation of the Vahram Papazian group and that was Hamazkayin's Kasbar Ipegian theater company. Ipegian, who had settled in Beirut in 1930, was one of Hamazkayin's founders. Hamazkayin was the cultural arm of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) or "Dashnak" party. The Hamazkayin Theater Association, which Ipegian founded in 1941, performed plays created by Armenian writers like Levon Shant and Papken Papazian. Their self-stated mission was to "reestablish and spread the art of theater in the diaspora". This included enhancing "Armenian theater’s educational role in the preservation of national identity".