TICKETS

Proudly Presents

West Coast Premiere

A play by Sanaz Toossi
Pulitzer Prize Winner for "English"
Directed by Mina Morita

Previews: January 12-16, 2025
Premiere Night: January 17, 2025
Regular Performances: January 18 - February 2

Recommendation: Age 16+

Awni Abdi-Bahri (Nazanin)
Sahar Bibiyan (Rana)
Tara Grammy (Salme)
Mitra Jouhari (Zari)
Artemis Pebdani (Shideh)
 

1978. Protests break out across Iran as five close girlfriends plan weddings, trade dirty jokes and try to live their young lives. As the revolution escalates, each woman is forced to face an uncertain future by staying in Iran or leaving it. In this enlightened comedy, Pulitzer Prize winner and Orange County native Sanaz Toossi chronicles a decade of life, as best friends become friends long lost, searching for the bond that once defined them.

Farhang Foundation Special Offer

Use Discount Code: FARHANG
when ordering by phone or online

About Sanaz Toossi

Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California. Her plays include the critically acclaimed, award-winning English (co-production Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company) and Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons; Williamstown/Audible, released 2020). She is currently under commission at Atlantic Theater Company (Launch commission; Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant), Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (American Revolutions Cycle). In television, Sanaz recently staffed on Invitation to a Bonfire (AMC); A League of Their Own (Amazon); Five Women (Marielle Heller/ Big Beach); and sold an original idea, The Persians, to FX with Joe Weisberg & Joel Fields attached as Executive Producers. Sanaz is a member of Youngblood and the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab at The Lark, and an alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, and the 2022 recipient of The Horton Foote Award. MFA: NYU Tisch.

About Awni Abdi-Bahri

Awni is a multidisciplinary actor and writer based in both Los Angeles and New York City. She is elated to be returning to SCR and this beautiful play after having played the role of Nazanin at Yale Repertory summer 2023.

Awni has performed on Broadway in POTUS or Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive (Shubert Theatre); Off-Broadway: Persian Pod (Ars Nova), Bismillah (Wild Project), and The Welcoming Committee (The Lark); TV and Film: Girls on the Bus (HBO Max), Evil (Paramount+), Ahamed’s Ramadan Diary (Comedy Central), and Eradication (Tubi).

As a writer, her latest theatrical play, Three Tall Persian Women, had its world premiere at Shakespeare and Company this past summer to fall to glowing reviews. She has also been selected to be a mentee for the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA’s) 2025 Pre-Writer’s Guild Mentorship Program where she will be developing her TV comedy Pilot, Anita’s Phantasias.

Awni holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University in New York. Awni dedicates this show to the women of Iran. Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.

About Tara Grammy

Tara Grammy (Salme) is an actor, writer, and producer. Her most recent theatre credits include playing the role of Elham in two productions of Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer-prize-winning English at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. and The Old Globe in San Diego, California. Other theatre credits include one-woman show Mahmoud (Best of Toronto Fringe and Patron’s Pick Winner, Fringe NYC Encore Series Excellence in Solo Performance Award). Mahmoud was published by Playwrights Canada Press (Governor General’s Award Nominee, Dora Mavor Moore Nominee). Tara was a host on Persia’s Got Talent (MBC Persia), part of the Got Talent franchise. She also starred in the hit romantic comedy A Simple Wedding (dir. Sara Zandieh) opposite Maz Jobrani, Rita Wilson and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Other film and TV credits include 2042 (TBS), S.W.A.T. (CBS) and Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero. She holds a BA in Theatre Performance from the University of Toronto.

About Mitra Jouhari

Mitra Jouhari (Zari) is a writer, actor and comedian. She is one-third of the cast of Three Busy Debras, which ran for two seasons on Adult Swim and whose second season won a WGA award. She has written for Big Mouth, Human Resources, Welcome to Flatch, High Maintenance, Miracle Workers, Overcompensating, The President Show and more. Her on-screen and voice acting appearances include Abbott Elementary, I Think You Should Leave, The Bear, Broad City, Clone High, The Big Sick, Search Party, Digman! and The History of the World Part II. She has performed sold-out live comedy shows all over the country and has written essays for The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, Flaunt and Los Angeles Review of Books.

About Artemis Pebdani

Artemis Pebdani (Shideh) is so happy to be part of this fantastic cast reprising the role of Shideh, which she originated in Wish You Were Here’s off-Broadway debut at Playwrights Horizons. She received her BFA in Theatre from Southern Methodist University, continued her studies at The Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre and later at just about any improv/sketch comedy house in Los Angeles you can name. If you recognize her face, it’s most likely from playing Artemis on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Vice President Susan Ross on Scandal, or recurring roles on The Goldbergs, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, Masters of Sex and others. If you recognize her voice, it’s very likely from playing Gramma Alice Green on Big City Greens, Gran on Hulu’s The Croods: Family Tree, Ensign Karavitus on Star Trek: Lower Decks or roles in other animated films, TV programs and video games.

About Mina Morita

Mina Morita (she/her) is a celebrated new plays director just awarded the Woolly Mammoth BOLD Resident Director & Creative Producer position as part of the BOLD Theatre Women’s Leadership Circle. She has directed for: Australia’s National Theatre of Parramatta and La Boite Theatres, The Guthrie Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, Center REPertory Company, Campo Santo, Shotgun Players, Playwrights Foundation, Ferocious Lotus, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, and Crowded Fire Theatre Company with such creators as Susan Soon He Stanton, Qui Nguyen, Anna Deavere Smith, Sanaz Toossi, Dipika Guha, Christopher Chen, Dave Harris, Star Finch, Stefani Kuo, J.C. Lee, Lauren Gunderson, Isaac Gomez, Philip Kan Gotanda, Young Jean Lee, Idris Goodwin, Lloyd Suh, Adam Chanzit, Sean San Jose, Min Kahng, and Dustin Chinn.

Mina is a recipient of the inaugural FrontOffice Mid-Career Director’s Award, Theatre Bay Area’s (TBA) Outstanding Direction of a Musical in 2014; nominated by TBA for Outstanding Direction of a Play in 2017, as well as Shellie Awards Best Director in 2018. She was recognized as a Beinecke Fellow with Yale University in 2022.

Previously, she served as the Leader of Artistic Curation & Strategy as part of the Shared Leadership Team in 2023 and Artistic Director from 2015-2022 at Crowded Fire Theater Company. From 2011-2015, she was the Artistic Associate at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and its center for the creation and development of new work, The Ground Floor. She has also served as Board President and Treasurer of Shotgun Players; as a 2014 Lincoln Center Director’s Lab participant; as one of the founding members of Bay Area Children's Theatre; as panelist with the Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Theatre Bay Area, and Hewlett Foundation; as a speaker for the Getty Leadership Summit; lead facilitator for the Lotus Playwriting Retreat with Playwriting Australia; and Guest Artist at Yale’s DGSD, UC Berkeley and Stanford Universities. In 2016, TBA awarded her the 40@40 distinction for her impact on Bay Area Theater. In 2015, Mina was honored to share her story on TEDx, and in 2016, she was chosen as one of the YBCA100, for "asking questions and making provocations that will shape the future of culture."