Sanaz Toossi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1991 or 1992 (age 33–34) |
| Occupation | Playwright, screenwriter, actress |
| Education | University of California, Santa Barbara (BA) New York University (MFA) |
| Genre | Drama, comedy, dramatic comedy, comedy-drama |
| Subject | Iranian diaspora, language, identity, family |
Sanaz Toossi (born 1991/1992)[1] is an American playwright and screenwriter. Her playEnglish won thePulitzer Prize for Drama in 2023.[2]
Toossi was born inOrange County,California, where she grew up.[3][1] She is of Iranian descent; her father, an engineer, emigrated to the United States before theIranian Revolution and her mother, a chemist, did so afterward.[3][1] She is an only child,[4] spokePersian in her family home and English outside it, and visited Iran regularly when she was growing up.[5] She grew up a self-described "weirdtheatre kid."[6]
Toossi earned her bachelor's degree from theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, majoring in pre-law.[3] She said that she decided to change her career plan from law to playwriting after seeing a performance ofAmy Herzog's4000 Miles at theSouth Coast Repertory.[3] She graduated from theTisch School of the Arts atNYU in 2018.[3] There she studied underSuzan-Lori Parks,Oskar Eustis, andLucas Hnath.[1] Her plays are drawn from personal experience and the experiences of her family.[4][3]
Her first two major plays opened in New York in early 2022, inoff-Broadway theaters:English at theAtlantic Theater Company in February andWish You Were Here atPlaywrights Horizons in April.[4]
Toossi originally wroteEnglish as her NYU graduate school thesis. She described it as an angry reaction toPresident Trump's2017 executive order, known as the "Muslim ban," prohibiting travel to the United States fromIran and six other Muslim-majority states. The play is a comedy set in a schoolroom inKaraj, Iran where a teacher is teaching the English language to four adult students. Helen Shaw wrote in a February 2025 review inThe New Yorker thatEnglish 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 ofEnglish, scheduled for 2020 at theRoundabout Theatre Company's Underground Black Box Theatre, was postponed because of theCOVID-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, inBoston;Washington, D.C.;Toronto;Montreal;Berkeley, California;Atlanta;Pittsfield, Massachusetts;Seattle;Chicago; andMinneapolis;[5] in the UK in May and June 2024, first staged by theRoyal Shakespeare Company and then at theKiln Theatre inLondon;[1] inMelbourne andCanberra,Australia in August and September 2024;[9] and in January 2025, at theTodd Haimes Theater, as itsBroadway debut.[10] Toossi herself starred in the 2023 Barrington Stage production ofEnglish as Elham.[11][12]
Toossi wroteWish You Were Here long afterEnglish, 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 inKaraj, 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'sNew Yorker review describesWish 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 toEnglish, "the playwright demonstrates far more comfort with elision and, ironically, with the unspoken."[3][7][15]
Wish You Were Here premiered on July 1, 2020, as an audio performance released on Audible by theWilliamstown Theatre Festival inWilliamstown, 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 atSouth Coast Repertory in southern California in January–February 2025.[17]
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 theDramatists 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 onEnglish andWish You Were Here, in the 2022New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards.[21]
English received the Williamstown Theatre Festival's L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award in 2020,[22] theLucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play in 2022,[23] the 2022Obie Award for Best New American Play,[24] the 2021-22 John Gassner Award (for a new American play, preferably by a new playwright) from theOuter Critics Circle Awards,[25] the Dramatists Guild's 2023Hull-Warriner Award (co-winner),[26] and the 2023Pulitzer Prize for drama.[27]
Wish You Were Here was nominated for the 2023Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.[28]
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