English Study Guide

A STUDENT GUIDE

ENGLISH BY SANAZ TOOSSI DIRECTED BY KNUD ADAMS

FIVE SMALL INVITATIONS FROM STUDIO THEATRE TO YOU, OUR AUDIENCE:

1. We are all here to experience live theatre together. Welcome!

2. Be yourself! And be respectful of others sharing the space with you.

3. We invite you to laugh, cry, cheer… and do it all out loud.

4. Our actors feed on your energy, so feel free to respond, so long as it doesn’t disrupt the production. Please keep phones and other technology tucked away during the show.

5. Theatre is designed to challenge us. It’s ok to be uncomfortable for a little bit; if you’re feeling it, others are too. Engage with the work and see where it takes you.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STORY OF ENGLISH

English is set in Karaj, Iran in 2009. MARJAN is teaching a class to help her adult students prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Marjan has always loved speaking English, and starts the first class with a clear directive: English Only. GOLI, age 18, is the youngest student, and has always wanted to learn English. She is considering leaving home and knows that a passing test score could be her ticket out. OMID has American cousins and a green card interview coming soon. His classmate Roya acknowledges that “they’re harder on men. With visas and green cards.” ROYA wants to be able to communicate with her granddaughter Claire, who lives in Canada with her parents and only speaks English. ELHAM is humiliated that she has already taken the TOEFL five times, and not yet passed. She wants to attend medical school and already has an MCAT score of 40 (which puts her in the 99th percentile of med school applicants). Marjan loves her job, but might be headed for the most challenging class of her life.

Karaj, Iran.

WHO IS SANAZ TOOSSI?

≈ She is the playwright of English (and the play Wish You Were Here)

≈ Sanaz grew up in Orange County, California, in a bilingual household

≈ She doesn’t have siblings

≈ When she started writing plays, she hid it from her parents (who suspected she was hiding a pregnancy instead!)

≈ Her parents grew up in Iran, and Sanaz frequently visited her family there

≈ She had two Off Broadway plays premiere in the same year (2022)! English was supposed to have had a first production in 2020, but was delayed

≈ Sanaz also writes for television, including the Prime series A League of Her Own

≈ She says this about tragedy: “Writing a trauma play makes me want to dry heave.”

≈ She says this about comedy: “I am, at my core, someone who loves a cheap laugh. I would fling myself off this booth to make you laugh.”

“I LOVE THAT LANGUAGE FAILS US. IT SHOULD.”

–Sanaz Toossi

WHAT IS THE TOEFL?

TOEFL stands for “test of English as a Foreign Language.” It is an assessment of English language skills taken by university applicants that are primarily speakers of other languages. There are reading, writing, speaking, and listening sections. There is a paper test available in countries where internet testing is unavailable, but 97% of students take the exam online. It takes about four hours to complete, with a single 10-minute break.

MARJAN

Why do we learn language?

GOLI

Um, To say if we are hungry.

MARJAN

Yes! To speak our needs. Why else?

Beat.

OMID

To bring the inside to the outside.

MARJAN

Yes. To speak not only our needs but our wants. To speak our souls. To speak. And to…[motions at her ear] listen. To the insides of others.

–From English by Sanaz Toossi

SPOILER #1: ENGLISH IS NOT ALWAYS ENGLISH

Playwright Sanaz Toossi has done something innovative and fascinating in this play. Each character has a specific, unique accent. When we hear this accent, we’ll know they are speaking English. When we hear unaccented English, we can imagine that the characters are speaking Farsi.

After The Play: Did you get the hang of this quickly as an audience member? How effective was this for you?

SPOILER #2: STORM’S COMING

Director Knud Adams’s work has been called “cinematically precise,” because some of his work in the theater is inspired by the imagery of film. One particularly cinematic moment in this piece comes at the end: it rains onstage. The rain does not appear in a stage direction, so this is part of Knud’s and set designer Afsoon Pajoufar’s interpretation of the play.

After The Play: What impact did the rain have on you as an audience member? How did you interpret the meaning of the rain in this play?

SPOILER #3: IF YOU DON’T SPEAK FARSI…

You may not understand the final words of the play. But you might understand the meaning of it without understanding the words. On Sanaz Toossi’s Instagram, she describes the ending like this: “Marjan basically tells Elham that one day her accent might change with time. And Elham respectfully says…probably not. Elham thanks Marjan and Marjan says don’t be a stranger.”

After The Play:How did this moment impact you? How would you describe the feeling of the end of this play?

“PERSIAN” & “FARSI”

You’ll see that some people in this student guide use the word “Farsi” to refer to a language that other people refer to as “Persian.” Persian is the name of the language in English and Farsi is the Persian word for the language. (A bit like Español for Spanish or Deutch in German.) Farsi is also the word many Iranians use for their language when speaking English.

In conversation with our cast, Sanaz explained her decision to use the word Farsi, “even though some people are angry about it on Twitter,” because it’s the word that her mother and her family use to for their language. “I wanted it to feel accessible to them,” she says.

TIMELINE OF IRANIAN PROTESTS: 2009-2023

This timeline is indebted to the writing of Abbas Milani, Director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University, and Karim Sadjapour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Spring 2009: This production of English is set in spring 2009, during the campaign of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, and its action ends just after the June 2009 election.

June 12, 2009: Incumbent conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims a landslide victory. Mousavi supporters protest on the street chanting, “Where’s my vote?” despite the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) longstanding ban on mass protests.

June 2009-February 2010: Ongoing protests across Iran, calling for civil rights and the democratic process many sought in the 1978-79 Revolution. These protests, which came to be known as the Green Movement after the color Mousavi used during his campaign, reach 3 million people at their height and are the most significant protest movement since the Revolution. As the protests continue, the IRI take control of internet use and shut down Facebook (most Iranians maintain access through proxy servers). The IRI also arrest, torture, and force public confessions from members of the Green Movement. In February 2010, leaders of the Green Movement call off a planned protest after a violent crackdown from the state police, marking the end of the active phase of their protests.

September 16, 2022: 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman

Zhina Mahsa Amini dies from injuries inflicted by the IRI’s morality police for improperly wearing her headscarf; although she and others thought she was in compliance. Throughout the fall, protests of her death spread across Iran—led by women and girls—and encompass calls for democracy, freedom of speech, an end to gender apartheid, and civil rights for women, religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQ people in Iran. They are the largest sustained protest movement since the 1978-79 Revolution, with many calling for regime change.

January 2, 2023: As of this date, the IRI has arrested more than 19,000 protestors, killed at least 516, sentenced 11 people to death, and executed at least two protestors after trials widely denounced for their lack of due process. Several of the actors in Studio’s production of English are amplifying the voices of Iranians who don’t have the same freedoms to protest.

Left: Green Revolution protesters, June 17, 2009. Photo Hamed Saber / Wikimedia

Below: Unveiled Iranian woman protesting the death of Zhina Mahsa Amini in police custody; September 2022. (image via Twitter)

ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION

Interview With Actor Tara Grammy

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Please tell us about your character, Elham.

TARA GRAMMY: She’s a typical Iranian girl who wants to go study abroad, which is very common in Iran. She’s been accepted into a very prestigious school but needs to pass the TOEFL to attend. But she’s also having a hard time in class, because she kind of resents the fact that she has to learn English. She wishes that Persian was the language that everybody spoke, you know? And she’s like, but how can I connect in English?

Q: What in this play particularly resonates with your own experiences?

TG: So, I’m lucky. I grew up very bilingual, but the identity I was most comfortable with was always in English. I didn’t feel like I could fully express myself in Persian. You feel things in one language, but then think things in another language. The language that you’re angry in is one language, but the language that you feel close to your family in is another language. You’re kind of in between two worlds. And it took me a long time to accept this dual identity of being Iranian and being Canadian. In the end, you learn that you can be both.

Q: Have you always been a performer?

TG: Yeah, I was in kindergarten for my first play, and performed through elementary school, middle school, high school. I went to an arts high school and my amazing high school drama teacher gave me the male lead of our high school musical. I was Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in Anything Goes. It was like my dream come true to do that, and I realized, oh,

this is actually what I wanna do forever. I even have a diary entry from when I was eight years old where I said, “when I grow up, I wanna be an actress.”

Q: Do you have other performers in your family too?

TG: Literally no one. Even though my mom worked and she was so busy, she was always very clear with me that it was obvious what I was good at. She never pushed me in another direction. She’s like, “You’re a great writer. You’ll either be a journalist or you’ll be an actor.” Everybody has a talent and you have to really pay attention to what you enjoy.

Q: Is the art you make now similar to art you made in high school?

TG:I liked doing comedy. I didn’t like super avant-garde things. I really have always liked comedy as a way to get a message across and to connect. And I think it’s way more interesting to make people laugh than to make them cry. Or both, hopefully.

Q: Could you talk about the intersection of your art and your activism?

TG: I have an activist spirit, but I think being Iranian is being political. Did you know what a revolution was when you were four? Every single Iranian you will ever meet knew what a revolution was when they were four. You understand what oppression and tyranny looks like and you understand what democracy is, and you understand what’s fair and what’s not fair, what justice is, what injustice is from a very young age.

I wrote a one-woman show called Mahmoud and I knew: if it is successful, I probably won’t be able to go back to Iran because it’s a political play. I mean, it’s more of a social play, but it has political undertones because if you’re writing about Iran, it’s political. The play got really big and it was perceived very well. It was nominated for a very prestigious award in Canada. It was published. And I couldn’t go back to Iran. I decided that I’ll always make work about being Iranian.

It’s been really scary always speaking out about Iran. I had a mentor who was like, “they don’t have a voice, be their voice.” And that always stayed with me, and that is my responsibility as an Iranian, and I think it’s our responsibility as human beings to always stand up for justice. So if we know that this country is being so severely oppressed, and women just like you and me, who are sitting here having a casual conversation about politics on the phone, can’t do that. This conversation that you and I just had couldn’t happen in Iran.

We have the power to stand up for that. To stand up for women’s rights, for human rights. So I think it’s a human responsibility and then especially an artist’s responsibility to do that.

ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION

Interview With Set Designer

Afsoon Pajoufar

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. What did you consider as you started to imagine the design for English at Studio?

AFSOON PAJOUFAR: I understand the feeling of the people in the story. Everybody is coming to this class with the hope of obtaining something in the future, either by staying or leaving Iran.

These characters are looking to transform something through this English course in their life and in their future. [Director Knud Adams and I] decided to expand the stage space beyond the classroom and create the courtyard so that it gives us many opportunities to play with the daytime, nighttime, and weather.

Q: How do you use the weather in this play?

AP: Rain is one of the elements we are going to use in this production. I think it adds a very beautiful and pure, basically poetic moment to the whole production, especially for the final moments. The finale of that story is very, very emotional and the rain effect will heighten that moment.

Q: Is it difficult to make it rain on stage?

AP: Yes! First off, dealing with the element of water on the stage, raised many other challenges in terms of how to get rid of the water. Now we have to rake the whole upstage area and collect the rain in a gutter or something to drain the water so it doesn’t accumulate on a stage. [A raked theater stage slopes like a ramp–in this case, away from the audience.] These are the technical challenges and obviously there is a static or visual challenge as well. How realistic, how romantic or how dramatic we want to create this rain effect? That includes deciding the intensity and the speed of the rain. These are all factors.

Q: What has it been like working with director Knud Adams?

AP: It was our first time working together, but once we started working and brainstorming it has been super smooth. It feels like we understood each other even without extending too many words. I felt like, “It feels like [I’ve] known you for a long time and we’ve been working together for life.”

Q: How beautiful working on a play about language to feel that you’re communicating even without or beyond language or beside language.

AP: Yeah, especially [since] you know English is my second language. My English was not as you are hearing right now, obviously, 10 years ago, when I moved here. So it improved and it totally changed. It changed the amount of emotion that you’re able to communicate with your friends with your collaborators. When you’re not able, it’s very limiting. It feels like your hands are tied in the back and your vocabulary is very limited. You’re constantly translating from your mother tongue in your head to English, which doesn’t make sense because you have to learn the culture. I really lived this story.

Q: Did you always have a strong interest in design?

AP: I knew that I wanted to do something in art. Once you’re a sophomore in high school in Iran, you have to keep a concentration. You have to be focused on one program: either using math or liberal art or biology. Unless you go to the art school which was a big taboo and I didn’t want to tap into that with my parents. They forced me to basically get my high school diploma in math. But at the same time I was pursuing my passion: I was exploring photography and graphic design. And I went to college for painting, fine art. As a painter, you’re mostly working by yourself in your studio, and it was nice for a month or two. After that I was getting bored and depressed and I needed some kind of collaboration, teamwork. And that’s how I got grounded into theater design.

Q: Do you have a favorite part of the design process?

AP: I’m just obsessed by research. Watching movies, going to the museum, listening to a piece of music–I can basically use any piece of information, even when I’m on the train in New York City. If I see somebody in a specific pose on the train, I’ll capture that moment. I use it. I’m learning through my work.

I’m improving myself as a human who is going to hop to the next production in less than a month. I really, really enjoy it.

We have the power to stand up for that. To stand up for women’s rights, for human rights. So I think it’s a human responsibility and then especially an artist’s responsibility to do that.

Left: Afsoon Pajoufar’s initial design for English at Studio Theatre

DISCUSSION & WRITING PROMPTS :

1

The play’s characters have specific relationships with the English language. What’s your relationship to English? Do you have relationships with additional languages? How does your relationship to English and other languages shape how you see yourself and other speakers of that language?

2

Playwright Sanaz Toossi says writing plays is a way to “bridge the gap between my Iranian-ness and my American-ness.” Can you relate to the need to bridge cultures or groups? Are there worlds that seem very different that come together in you? How do you bridge the gap between them?

3

The characters in this play use Farsi and English to communicate their needs, wants, “and souls.” Choose a time when something you said or wrote was misunderstood. What happened? How did you feel and what did you do next?

4 Compare the events of the play to learning experiences in your own life. Was there any part of the play that reflected your own experiences? Was there any part of the play that gave you insight into something you have never experienced?

5

Describe the learning space you are in right now. Use sensory details about things you hear, see, touch, and smell in this space. Examine how it supports, or does not support, the things you are learning in this place. Propose a plan for an ideal learning space for you: what would it include and how would it function?

CODE-SWITCHING: A PRE- OR POST-SHOW ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY

Learning Objectives

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

Employ the ideas of “code-switching” and “contextual identity” in discussion

Write dialogue and describe body language for contrasting scenarios

Identify and discuss how code-switching creates different roles for one person

Step One: Discuss Code-Switching (10 minutes)

In English, characters remark that they feel and act differently when speaking in their mother tongue of Farsi than when they express their ideas in English.

We all learn to present ourselves differently in social situations in our lives as a way of shaping how other people view us. You may have heard this called code-switching For example, we might toggle between two or more languages, dialects, or accents. We might choose different vocabulary to use with one group of people that we would not use with another group. We might speak in a different rhythm or use a higher or lower tone. We might change the way we dress or move. Folks whose identities are further outside of the dominant culture might do this more frequently than others.

People code-switch for a lot of different reasons! Sometimes it’s to connect with others or to fit in. Sometimes it’s for our own physical safety or the safety of those in our community. This ability to code-switch forms a contextual identity, meaning that we seem different in different contexts or situations.

Are you (the students) familiar with this term? Where have you seen code-switching? Can you think of examples where you use code-switching? It’s possible that you might have used it to fit in with friends or peers, to show you are part of your family or culture, or to act “appropriately” for a serious or formal occasion.

Step Two: What Would You Say and Do? (20 minutes)

Use the example scenario below to brainstorm as a collective: what are three things you might say? What are three ways you might use body language or vocal quality?

Example Scenario: You’re watching your friend’s very cranky baby sister, and she won’t stop fussing. What would you say to soothe the baby? How would you use your voice differently than your usual speech?

Then select two or three of the scenarios below to read to your students, one at a time. If desired, use the worksheet provided in this packet to record answers. In the “say” column, write three things in quotation marks, exactly as you would say them. In the “do” column, add three descriptors of ways you might use body language or speaking style to get your point across.

CODE-SWITCHING: A PRE- OR POST-SHOW ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY

Scenarios

1. You work at a clothing store, and you have to tell your manager that you need some time off during the busy winter season. Your manager refused to give you days off last year. How would you begin this conversation? How would you use your body language, word choices, and tone to get your schedule changed?

2. Your favorite aunt loves it when you remember her birthday, but this year you were busy with school and forgot. Now it’s one week later and you call her to apologize. How will you convince her that you are sincerely sorry?

3. Today you failed a test, got rejected by a crush, and cracked your phone screen. Only your best friend will understand how comically awful your day was. How would you start to tell this story at lunch?

4. Your fellow classmates have organized a protest to stand against a dress code that you find outdated and offensive. You’re at the rally, prepared to speak, and someone hands you the microphone to address the crowd. What do you say and how do you say it?

5. You are seeing friends from your old neighborhood after a long time and they ask you how you have been doing. What do you say? How does your language change compared to the way you are in your classroom?

Step Three: Describe The Role (5 minutes)

Consider the “say” and “do” column in each scenario. Now add adjectives to the “describe” column. What qualities does this person have? If you were to give this role a name or title, what would it be?

For example, the person the Example Scenario might be “calm, collected, peaceful” or could be called “The Soother.”

Step Four: Reflect (10 minutes)

Discuss in pairs, small groups, or as a whole class:

1. How would you describe some of the roles represented in these scenarios?

2. Does the concept of code-switching ring true to your daily experiences? Do you ever feel like you are a different person in different places?

3. How do we use language as a tool for code-switching in our lives?

CORE STANDARDS

National Core Arts Anchor Standard (NCAAS) #7: perceive and analyze artistic work

TH:Re7.1.Prof Respond to what is seen, felt, and heard in a drama/theatre work to develop criteria for artistic choices.

TH:Re7.1.Acc Demonstrate an understanding of multiple interpretations of artistic criteria and how each might be used to influence future artistic choices of a drama/theatre work.

NCAAS #8: interpret intent and meaning in artistic work (Responding)

TH:Re8.1b.Prof Identify and compare cultural contexts and contexts that may influence the evaluation of a drama/theatre work.

TH:Re8.1c.Prof Understand how multiple aesthetics, preferences, and beliefs shape participation in and observation of a drama/theatre work.

TH:Re8.1b.Acc Apply concepts from a drama/theatre work for personal realization about cultural contexts and understanding.

NCAAS #9: apply criteria to evaluate artistic work (Responding)

TH:Re9.1a.Prof Examine a drama/ theatre work using supporting evidence and criteria, while considering art forms, history, culture, and other disciplines.

TH:Re9.1c.Prof Formulate a deeper understanding and appreciation of a drama/ theatre work by considering its specific purpose or intended audience.

TH:Re9.1c.Acc Justify how a drama/theatre work communicates for a specific purpose and audience.

NCAAS #11: relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding (Connecting)

TH:CA11.1a.Prof Explore how cultural, global, and historic belief systems affect creative choices in a drama/theatre work.

TH:Cn11.2b.Prof Use basic research methods to better understand the social and cultural background of a drama/theatre work

ABOUT STUDIO THEATRE

Studio Theatre is a longstanding Washington cultural institution dedicated to the production of contemporary theatre. Over more than 40 years and 350 productions, the theatre has grown from a company that produced in a single rented theatre to one that owns a multi-venue complex stretching half a city block, but has stayed committed to its core distinguishing characteristics: deliberately intimate spaces; excellence in acting and design; and seasons that feature many of the most significant playwrights of our time.

Studio is a values-focused organization that pursues artistry and inclusion, and brings characteristic thoughtfulness and daring to our efforts, onstage and off. The theatre serves nearly 75,000 people each year, including more than 1,000 youth and young adults through community engagement initiatives. Founded in 1978, the quality of Studio’s work has been recognized by sustained community support, as well as 78 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in professional theatre.

This project was supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.