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Wish You Were Here

  • Sanaz Toossi
  • Full Length Play, Dramatic Comedy, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s
  • 5F
  • ISBN: 9780573709876

Set in Iran from 1978 to 1991, this breathtaking and unabashed comedy-drama explores the evolving relationships among a group of five women during the escalation, height and aftermath of the Iranian Revolution.

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Dramatic Comedy
  • 105 minutes

  • Time Period: 1990s, 1980s, 1970s
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings
  • Cautions: Mild Adult Themes, Strong Language, Smoking

  • Performance Group:
  • College Theatre / Student, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups, Professional Theatre

  • Accolades:
  • Recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award (2021)
It's 1978 and protests are breaking out all across Iran, encroaching on this suburb where a tight-knit circle of girlfriends plans weddings, trades dirty jokes, and tries to hang onto a sense of normalcy. But as the revolution escalates, each woman is forced to join the wave of emigration or face an equally uncertain future at home.

With breathtaking humanity and cutting wit, Wish You Were Here chronicles a decade of life during war, as best friends forever become friends long lost, scattered and searching for home.
REVIEWS:

"A masterful work... How lucky we are to live in a time when Sanaz Toossi is actively writing."

 Theatrely

"Toossi focuses... on the women and how their relationships to one another – and to themselves – change with marriages, deaths and sudden departures. Their friendship is its own saga of constantly fluctuating degrees of intimacy and friction."

 The New York Times

"Bittersweet... It’s Toossi’s intention to lend an ear to women when secluded, but she decidedly has a deeper concern. On her mind is the fragility of friendship, when it flowers and wilts, sometimes flowering again, sometimes never returning, or barely returning."

 New York Stage Review

"Femininity and the fallouts of war are given an appealingly informal treatment in Wish You Were Here... Charting the course of a tight-knit friend group as the Iranian Revolution shakes up its members’ lives one intimate conversation at a time, it feels like a night in with the girls while the world outside crumbles and changes."

 Theatrely

Premiere Production: Wish You Were Here made its world premiere on July 1, 2020 at Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The play premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on April 13, 2022. Directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch, the off-Broadway production featured Nikki Massoud, Marjan Neshat, Nazanin Nour, Artemis Pebdani and Roxanna Hope Radja.

Characters

  • Casting: 5F
  • Casting Attributes: All Female
  • Casting Notes: All womxn. All start around age 20 in 1978. Cast them as the women they will become.

  • NAZANIN – Sort of mean.
    SALME – Peaceful; religious and hijabi. Even when she’s not paying attention, she is present.
    ZARI – Happy-go-lucky, spacecase. Grows up a lot.
    SHIDEH – Uptight, takes everything too seriously. But takes it much easier later in the play.
    RANA – Queen of cool, sophisticated and fun.
    NEW FRIEND – Played by Shideh.

    • Available Material

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    It's 1978 and protests are breaking out all across Iran, encroaching on this suburb where a tight-knit circle of girlfriends plans weddings, trades dirty jokes, and tries to hang onto a sense of normalcy. But as the revolution escalates, each woman is forced to join the wave of emigration or face an equally uncertain future at home.

    With breathtaking humanity and cutting wit, Wish You Were Here chronicles a decade of life during war, as best friends forever become friends long lost, scattered and searching for home.

    		$24.95

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