Sanaz Toossi about her Pulitzer: ‘This gives Iranians signals that our stories matter’

Sanaz Toossi had just gone through security at the San Francisco airport when her cell phone rang Monday afternoon. It was her agent who told the 31-year-old playwright that she had won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for “English”, her first produced play.

Toossi, who had written the piece as a graduation project at New York University, was incredulous. “I asked, ‘Are you sure?’ And when she said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Can you please double check?’”

The prize was real, and as Toossi boarded a plane to Los Angeles, her phone started buzzing with congratulations not only from the United States, but also from Iran, where her parents were born and where the play is set.

Recently named Best New American Play by Off Broadway’s Obie Awards, ‘English’ is a moving and period comedy drama about a small group of adults in Karaj, Iran – Toossi’s mother’s hometown – who are preparing for the test. of English as a foreign language. The Pulitzers called it “a quietly powerful piece,” saying of the characters that “family separations and travel restrictions push them to learn a new language that can change their identities and also represent a new life.”

Born and raised in Orange County, California, Toossi spoke Farsi at home with her family and English outside the home, and she visited Iran regularly as she grew up. In a phone interview on Tuesday, she talked about “English” and the Pulitzer win. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How did you come up with the idea for ‘English’?

I think I wrote this play out of anger at the anti-immigrant rhetoric that was and is so pervasive in this country. I am so grateful that my parents were able to emigrate to this country and make something better for themselves and for me. They worked their ass off, and they created beauty where there was none, and it pained me to see them and myself being talked about as if we didn’t belong here.

What is the play about?

It’s about the pain of being misunderstood, and how language and identity are intertwined.

You are a writer and you have written a play about language. What have you learned about words?

I feel incredibly insecure about both my English and Farsi speaking skills – I feel like I know 50 percent of each language, and I feel like I always bomb job interviews because the words never come to me the way I that wants to come to me. Of course, this piece was so much about my parents and immigrants and hoping that we can give grace to people who try to express themselves in a language they didn’t grow up with, but I think it was also a reminder to be kind to myself.

What’s it like watching the play with an audience that is presumably largely non-Iranian-American?

It’s a bit of torture to watch your play with an audience around you. I just watch them watch the play. I remember when we did it in New York it was hard to feel like we were laughing wrong some nights. But I’m also really moved by the non-Iranian audience that has come to the play and got into it themselves. That’s what you ask of an audience, and that’s great.

As the play plays across the country, you create more work for Iranian-American artists. Was that a motivation?

I grew up watching media where I was incredibly frustrated with our representation and the roles we were offered. I know so many actors in our community, and they are so incredibly talented, and it was frustrating to feel like their talents weren’t put to good use. I wanted to work with them and I wanted to give them roles that they loved. It was very important to me to make this part funny because I didn’t want to shut our actors out for big laughs.

In previous interviews you have talked about the fear of being pigeonholed.

I don’t know if that fear will ever go away. I’m so proud to be Iranian and to be able to tell these stories, and I just keep hoping that if I turn in an assignment that isn’t about Iran, it will be just as exciting.

You do some television work. Are you a member of the Writers Guild of America? Are you on strike?

I’m on strike. I was on the picket line last week. I am incredibly proud to be a WGA member. I love theater – theater is my first love, and my greatest love – but I can’t live off theater. If I could, I would give myself completely to the theatre. But the WGA meant that I had health insurance during Covid and I pay my rent. I’ll be on the picket line this week too, and however long it takes. That’s how we subsidize our theater making for so many playwrights.

What’s next for you?

This year I had to ask myself if what we’re doing is important. The people of Iran are in the middle of a women-led revolution and they are putting their lives on the line. I wonder who I would be if we never left, and I wonder if I would leave my roosari [head scarf] falling back knowing it could mean my life. But I really, really believe that theater is important – I was changed by theater, and theater imagined a better future for me when my imagination failed me. So I don’t know what’s next, but I just hope that in this year of so much pain and bloodshed, I hope this is a signal to Iranians that our stories matter and that we are being listened to. And soon I hope we can play this piece in Iran.