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Sanaz Toossi

Sanaz Toossi is an American playwright and screenwriter. Her play English won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2023.[1]

Life and career

Toossi was born in 1991 or 1992, in Orange County, California, where she grew up.[2][3] She is of Iranian descent; her father, an engineer, emigrated to the United States before the Iranian Revolution and her mother, a chemist, did so afterward.[2][3] She is an only child,[4] spoke Farsi in her family home and English outside it, and visited Iran regularly when she was growing up.[5] She grew up a self-described "weird theatre kid."[6]

Toossi earned her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, majoring in pre-law.[2] She said that she decided to change her career plan from law to playwriting after seeing a performance of Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles at the South Coast Repertory.[2] She graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU in 2018.[2] There she studied under Suzan-Lori Parks, Oskar Eustis, and Lucas Hnath.[3] Her plays are drawn from personal experience and the experiences of her family.[4][2]

Her first two major plays opened in New York in early 2022, in off-Broadway theaters: English at the Atlantic Theater Company in February and Wish You Were Here at Playwrights Horizons in April.[4]

English

Toossi originally wrote English as her NYU graduate school thesis. She described it as an angry reaction to President Trump's 2017 executive order, known as the "Muslim ban," prohibiting travel to the United States from Iran and six other Muslim-majority states. The play is a comedy set in a schoolroom in Karaj, Iran where a teacher is teaching the English language to four adult students. Helen Shaw wrote in a February 2025 review in The New Yorker that English addresses "the way half-learned languages can rub against one another, sometimes erasing aspects—compassion, graciousness, humor—of the person using them." Shaw added, "for all the precise realism of the play's setting and dialogue, Toossi seems to be writing allegorically about a wider experience, perhaps one familiar to her, of the immigrant's double consciousness."[4][7]

The first production of English, scheduled for 2020 at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Underground Black Box Theatre, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The play opened at the Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater, in a co-production with Roundabout, on February 22, 2022.[8] English was staged in 2023 and 2024 across North America, in Boston; Washington, D.C.; Toronto; Montreal; Berkeley, California; Atlanta; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Seattle; Chicago; and Minneapolis;[5] in the UK in May and June 2024, first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company and then at the Kiln Theatre in London;[3] in Melbourne and Canberra, Australia in August and September 2024;[9] and in January 2025, at the Todd Haimes Theater, as its Broadway debut.[10] Toossi herself starred in the 2023 Barrington Stage production of English as Elham.[11][12]

Wish You Were Here

Toossi wrote Wish You Were Here long after English, though it debuted first. She has called it a love letter to her mother. It has been described as a "drama"[7] or a "comedy"[4] or a "dramatic comedy"[13][14] or a "comedy-drama."[14] It is also partially set in Karaj, and in it five women talk about their lives over thirteen years beginning in 1978, against the backdrop of that period of Iranian history. Shaw's New Yorker review describes Wish You Were Here as "gorgeous," stating "I was reminded of how brilliantly Toossi can write for people who don't understand their own motivations," and that in it, compared to English, "the playwright demonstrates far more comfort with elision and, ironically, with the unspoken."[2][7][15]

Wish You Were Here premiered on July 1, 2020 as an audio performance released on Audible by the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Its stage debut at Playwrights Horizons began previews April 13, 2022 and officially opened on May 3, 2022. Its run there was extended at least twice. Toossi acted in that performance, playing the role of Rana, on May 21 and 22, 2022.[15][14][16] It was staged at South Coast Repertory in southern California in January-February 2025.[17]

Awards

In 2020, Toossi was one of 20 playwrights named as winners of the Steinberg Playwright Awards by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.[18] She won the 2021 National Theatre Conference's Barrie & Bernice Stavis Playwright Award as "an outstanding emerging playwright".[19] In 2022 the Dramatists Guild of America names Toossi as winner of the Horton Foote Award, for "a dramatist whose work seeks to plumb the ineffable nature of being human."[20] She received a special citation for emerging talent, based on English and Wish You Were Here, in the 2022 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards.[21]

English received the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award in 2020,[22] the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play in 2022,[23] the 2022 Obie Award for Best New American Play,[24] the 2021-22 John Gassner Award (for a new American play, preferably by a new playwright) from the Outer Critics Circle Awards,[25] the Dramatists Guild's 2023 Hull-Warriner Award (co-winner),[26] and the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for drama.[27]

Wish You Were Here was nominated for the 2023 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.[28]

Works

As playwright

As screenwriter

References

  1. ^ "Here are the winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes". NPR. May 8, 2023. Archived from the original on May 8, 2023. Retrieved May 8, 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tran, Diep (April 28, 2022). "Sanaz Toossi: Can We Talk?". AMERICAN THEATRE. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d Bano, Tim (April 24, 2024). "Writer Sanaz Toossi on bringing 'English' to Britain: 'It's a play born of rage'". Financial Times. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e Soloski, Alexis (February 17, 2022). "'Writing a Trauma Play Makes Me Want to Dry Heave'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023 – via NYTimes.com.
  5. ^ a b Paulson, Michael (May 9, 2023). "Sanaz Toossi on Her Pulitzer: 'This Signals to Iranians Our Stories Matter'". The New York Times. Retrieved February 22, 2025.
  6. ^ "Playwright Sanaz Toossi". www.roundabouttheatre.org. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Shaw, Helen (February 3, 2025). "Language Lesssons: Sanaz Toossi's "English" arrives on Broadway". The New Yorker.
  8. ^ Green, Jesse (February 23, 2022). "Review: Learning 'English,' When Your Accent Is a 'War Crime'". The New York Times. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
  9. ^ Heath, Nicola (August 14, 2024). "This Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy about life in Iran will make you laugh out loud". ABC News. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  10. ^ Green, Jesse (January 24, 2025). "Review: In 'English,' Looking for a Language to Live In". The New York Times. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
  11. ^ Culwell-Block, Logan (July 20, 2023). "Sanaz Toossi Will Star in Her Pulitzer-Winning English at Barrington Stage Company". Playbill. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  12. ^ Barnes, Steve (October 2, 2023). "Review: Pulitzer-winning play 'English' scores A for Barrington Stage". Times Union. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  13. ^ Bahr, Sarah (July 14, 2021). "New Playwrights Horizons Season Includes Will Arbery World Premiere". The New York Times. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  14. ^ a b c "Wish You Were Here". Concord Theatricals. Retrieved February 22, 2025.
  15. ^ a b Hall, Margaret (May 21, 2022). "Playwright Sanaz Toossi Steps Into Playwrights Horizons Wish You Were Here". Playbill. Retrieved February 22, 2025.
  16. ^ "WTF is Happening in 2020". Williamstown Theatre Festival. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
  17. ^ Marchese, Eric (January 8, 2025). "'Wish You Were Here' Traces Friendship in Turbulent Times". Culture OC. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
  18. ^ "2020 Steinberg Playwright Award Recipients". Dramatists Guild. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
  19. ^ "Stavis Playwright Award". NATIONAL THEATRE CONFERENCE. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  20. ^ Rabinowitz, Chloe. "Sanaz Toossi, Jeanine Tesori, Alice Childress and More To Receive Dramatists Guild Awards". BroadwayWorld.com. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  21. ^ Gans, Andrew (May 20, 2022). "2022 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards Presented May 20". Playbill. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  22. ^ McPhee, Ryan (March 5, 2020). "Sanaz Toossi's English Wins Williamstown Theatre Festival's 2020 L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award". Playbill. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
  23. ^ "Iranian-American playwright is set on breaking expectations". NPR. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  24. ^ "2022 Awards". Obie Awards. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
  25. ^ "2021-2022 Outer Critics Circle Award Winners Announced". Dramatists Guild. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
  26. ^ "Samuel D. Hunter, Sanaz Toossi, More Win 2023 Dramatists Guild Awards". Playbill. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
  27. ^ "The 2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
  28. ^ Culwell-Block, Logan (May 31, 2023). "Some Like It Hot Dominates 2023 Drama Desk Awards; See the Full List of Winners". Playbill. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  29. ^ "Shifting Identities in Sanaz Toossi's "English"". The New Yorker. February 24, 2022. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  30. ^ Phillips, Maya (May 4, 2022). "'Wish You Were Here' Review: The Saga of Female Friendship". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023 – via NYTimes.com.
  31. ^ "World Premiere of Sanaz Toossi's Wish You Were Here Receives 2nd Extension | Playbill". Archived from the original on January 2, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  32. ^ a b c "Sanaz Toossi". Playwrights Horizons.
Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaz_Toossi