Kiln Theatre today announces the European première of Sanaz Toosi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English. Directed by Diyan Zora, the production completes Indhu Rubasingham’s final season as Artistic Director of Kiln Theatre. The production is presented by the RSC in association with Kiln Theatre, and opens at The Other Place as part of Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey’s first season there as Co-Artistic Directors.

Zora directs a cast including Nadia Albina (Marjan), Lanna Joffrey (Roya), Sara Hazemi (Goli) and Serena Manteghi (Elham). The production opens at Kiln Theatre on 6 June, with previews from 5 June, and runs until 29 June.

The Royal Shakespeare Company in association with Kiln Theatre present

The European première of

ENGLISH  

By Sanaz Toossi

The Other Place: 9 May – 1 June 

Press Night: 15 May at 7pm 

Kiln Theatre: 5 – 29 June  

Press Night: 6 June at 7pm  

Cast includes: Nadia Albina (Marjan), Lanna Joffrey (Roya), Sara Hazemi (Goli), Serena Manteghi (Elham)

Director: Diyan Zora; Designer: Anisha Fields; Sound Designer: George Dennis;

Movement: Maria Tarokh; Casting: Lotte Hines CDG

Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer prize-winning play about four adult Iranian classmates who grapple with learning English as a foreign language receives its European Première at The Other Place, ahead of performances at Kiln Theatre.

Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California. Her other plays include Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown/Audible). 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). She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, the 2022 recipient of The Horton Foote Award and, most recently, the 2023 recipient of the Best New American Play Obie Award. She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. 

Nadia Albina plays Marjan. Her theatre credits include Hecuba, Othello, The Merchant of Venice (RSC), Maryland, Living Newspaper: 5, Told from the Inside, New and Now (Royal Court Theatre), Emilia (Vaudeville Theatre), Dear Elizabeth, I Call My Brothers (Gate Theatre), The Madness of George III (Nottingham Playhouse) Emilia, Macbeth, Othello (Shakespeare’s Globe), Macbeth (National Theatre), Quiz (Chichester Festival Theatre), What if Women Ruled the World? (Manchester International Festival), Five Plays – You Are So Relevant (Young Vic), A Stab in the Dark, Show 5: A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts, Show 4: Glitterland, Show 3: Chamber Piece, Show 2: A Streetcar Named Desire, Show 1: Woyzeck(Secret Theatre), Reasons to be Cheerful (Graeae/Southbank Centre/New Wolsey), Shakespeare 365, Henry V (Orange Tree Theatre), The Iceberg (En Masse Theatre Co, Royal Exchange Theatre) The Red Ladies (The Clod Ensemble), Nabokov Shorts (Trafalgar Studios) and Good (Sound Theatre). For television, her work includes

Passenger, A Thousand Blows, Hidden Hand, You, Great Expectations, Vampire Academy, Silent Witness, The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, Sherwood, The Power, Doctor Who: Flux, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Innocent, The One, Year of the Rabbit, Home, Years and Years, Marcella, Trauma, Paralympic Opening Ceremony, Come Fly With Me, Whites, Doctors and Beautiful People; and for film, For Life and Making It. 

Sara Hazemi plays Goli. Her theatre credits include: A Guest (Vaults Festival), Half Empty Glasses, The Ultimate Pickle (Paines Plough), A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain (Paines Plough/Gate Theatre), Tales From Hans Christian Anderson (Guildford Shakespeare Company), Oedipus at Colonus (Cambridge Arts Theatre)and Footlights Pantomime: Red Riding Hood. For television, her work includes The Crown, The Cockfields, This Is Going To Hurt and Magpies Love Mirrors; and for film, Fugue and Benson. 

Lanna Joffrey plays Roya. Her theatre credits include Sister Radio (Pitlochry, Traverse, Tron, Perth, Lemon Tree, Derby, Byre), I Call My Brothers (Gate Theatre), The Time of Our Lies (Park Theatre), The Eyes of the Night (Cervantes Theatre), Muse of Fire, Sonnet Walks (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Thousand Splendid Suns (Old Globe, Arena Stage, A.C.T. & Seattle Rep), Soulless Ones (Hoxton Hall), Cause (Vaults Festival), The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens and Julius Caesar (The Factory), The Two Noble Kinsmen (Instant Classics), They Promised Her the Moon (Old Globe), Measure for Measure and Sad and Merry Madness (The Public), Richard III and Hamlet (Epic Theatre), Valiant (Edinburgh Fringe, Theatre503, Women & War Festival, JW3, WOW Festival Folkstone, NYFringe), Nine Parts of Desire (Lyric Stage, Kitchen Theatre), 1001, The House of the Spirits (Denver Center), The Strangest (HERE Arts), The Comedy of Errors, The Inspector General (CO Shakespeare Festival), Metamorphoses (Capital Repertory), Damascus (Northern Stage) and Five Kinds of Silence (Boundless Theatre). She is a company member of The Factory, Barefoot Theatre, Hyphen Artist Collective (Founder) and the Membership Lead of MENA Arts UK.  

Serena Manteghi plays Elham. Her theatre credits include Bleak Expectations (Criterion Theatre), The Hound of the Baskervilles (UK tour), Hamlet (Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre), Eurydice (Holden Street Theatres, Adelaide), Build a Rocket (Stephen Joseph Theatre/National UK tour), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Stephen Joseph Theatre), Echoes (Brits Off Broadway), My Mother Said I Never Should (The Other Place), The Railway Children (Kings Cross Theatre), HEART (Traverse Theatre), Mucky Kid (Theatre503), Agammemnon (Southwark Playhouse), Some Small Love Story (Arts Theatre) and The Beggar’s Opera (York Theatre Royal). For television, her work includes The Diplomat, The Other Half and Mrs Wilson; and for film, Miss Jihadi and Harvest.  

Diyan Zora is a British Iraqi theatre director and writer based in London. As winner of the 2021 Genesis Future Directors Award, Diyan directed Klippies by Jessica Sian at the Young Vic Theatre. Diyan recently formed part of the Bush Theatre’s 2022 Emerging Writer’s Group. Her theatre credits include Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles? (Chichester Festival Theatre), Tom Fool (Orange Tree Theatre), Klippies (Young Vic), Ms Y. (Young Vic), Consent (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama), Lysistrata (Lyric Theatre Springboard), Gather Ye Rosebuds (Theatre503), Twelfth Night (Cockpit Theatre), Othello (Barons Court Theatre) and Sticks and Stones (RADA).  As Associate Director, LOVE (National Theatre/European tour), Faith Hope and Charity (National Theatre) and The Ferryman (Gielgud Theatre); and as Assistant Director, Fireworks (Royal Court Theatre) and Evening at the Talkhouse (National Theatre). 

Written by Nura Arooj