In a co-production with Roundabout Theatre Company's Roundabout Underground, Atlantic Theater Company presents the world premiere of English, written by Iranian American playwright Sanaz Toossi, at the Linda Gross Theater. English tickets will be available on New York Theatre Guide soon.
English is a play that takes place in an Iranian classroom. A group of four adult students are preparing to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or the TOEFL. The classroom’s one rule is that they may only speak English. The idea excites them, and they test their skill throughout the play through word games, listening practice, and show-and-tell. They hope learning English will “make them whole,” but they risk losing their connection to their native tongue in the process, creating a gap between their English-speaking and Farsi-speaking selves.
Toossi premiered a one-act play during Atlantic’s Middle Eastern MixFest in 2018, curated by Mona Mansour (whose play The Vagrant Trilogy will appear at The Public Theater in April) and Heather Raffo. Three years later, Atlantic is producing English Off-Broadway in Toossi’s full-length professional debut as a playwright. English won a place on the 2019 Kilroys List and was an L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award winner. Toossi also wrote Wish You Were Here, which was meant to premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2020 before being canceled.
Director Knud Adams previously helmed The Headlands at the Claire Tow Theater, one of Lincoln Center Theater’s Off-Broadway spaces. Most recently, he directed Eboni Booth’s Paris for Atlantic Theater Company in early 2020, which received a four-star review from New York Theatre Guide and was listed as one of the “10 Best Theater Moments of 2020” by Time Magazine.
Tickets to English will be available soon.
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Two words set in motion playwright Sanaz Toossi’s intricate and profound New York debut: “English Only.” This is the mantra that rules one classroom in Iran, where four adult students are preparing for the TOEFL — the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises, and show-and-tell sessions, they hope that one day, English will make them whole. But it might be splitting them each in half.
The world-premiere production of English at Atlantic Theater Company has found its cast. The cast includes Tala Ashe as Elham, Ava Lalezarzadeh as Goli, Pooya Mohseni as Roya, Marjan Neshat as Marjan, and Hadi Tabbal as Omid.
If language is how we tell people who we are, can identity get lost in translation? The humor, frustrations, and consequences of adopting a non-native tongue are the basis of Sanaz Toossi’s play English. But the stories it tells also resonate deep beneath the surface, touching on hope, belonging, desire, and what makes people who they are.