The Pulitzer Prize-winning play “English” opened on Broadway just days after Donald Trump took office for the second time — which was notable timing for a show that had it roots in the early days of Trump’s first presidency.
Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:
It was the Muslim travel ban imposed by the U.S. government in early 2017 that prompted playwright Sanaz Toossi to write “English” in the first place. “I was furious and I was devastated,” she said on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast, in a conversation with the play’s lead actor, Marjan Neshat.
The play was also inspired, Toossi said, “by a lifetime of seeing people treat my parents, who speak English as a second language, as lesser-than because they had accents, and the way that they were perceived as less human and as people that don’t hold full personalities.”
Set in Karaj, Iran in 2008, “English” follows a small adult-education class studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Neshat, a close friend and collaborator of Toossi’s, plays the teacher of the class (also named Marjan). Although the show was inspired by Toossi’s anger, “English” is first and foremost a comedy: “It’s really important to me to make people laugh, because of how it opens people up to whatever you want to say to them,” the playwright said.
Neshat, who also starred in the show’s Off Broadway premiere in 2022, said the timing of the play’s Broadway opening “adds an extra layer of importance to doing to—to put these people onstage, to humanize them and put them front and center.”
“We live in a really tricky moment right now,” Toossi added. “I’m not here to say art can save us — but without art, we’re gonna die.”
Also on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Toossi and Neshat discuss audience reactions to the play and, in particular, responses to the show’s last 30 seconds, which are performed in Farsi, the native language of all the characters onstage. Neshat also highlights Toossi’s serious work ethic.
“I think Sanaz wrote a play during tech for ‘English,’” Neshat said with a laugh.
“It’s true!” Toossi confirmed. “But it was because of the panic of: This is going to be over soon!”
To hear the entire conversation, listen at the link above or download and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are released every other week.
