Audiences are transported to a classroom in Karaj, Iran, in 2008—where a group of four adults prepare to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The class’s mantra is “English Only,” which, of course, isn’t followed all the time. The play centers on these individuals and their personal reasons for needing a good test score.
“English…is a precise study of language’s significance,” stated The Guardian’s review in January 2025. “The 2023 Pulitzer prize winner slyly presents as a comedy about studying a foreign language, but eventually blooms into an evocation of grief and assimilation.”
Iranian-American Director Arya Shahi shared that an essential theme of the performance is how language influences identity, growth, and belonging.
“It is a story that is so much bigger than just one demographic…” Shahi told CT Latino News. “It is a story that applies to anybody that has ever tried to be bilingual…it speaks so beautifully to how our words are like our verbal DNA.”
Shahi highlighted how Sanaz Toossi portrays the people in “English”; how important it is that she shares the stories of five unique, complex, messy people.
He said, especially in the narrative world and in stories of underrepresented communities, there’s a tendency to clean characters up. There’s an expectation of making people “to be perfect others and representatives.”
Shahi added, “What I love about a piece like this is that it does not mention the politics of Iran once. It does not mention the stories that I thought we had to tell as Iranians.”
Instead, Sanaz Toossi tells “the story of people having to learn language, and the reasons why they’re learning the language slowly bleed into the plot. Those reasons are very personal, and they are very rooted in what these people want for their lives, which I think is the exact way you need to create a piece of art that engenders empathy rather than something that feels like advocacy or feels overtly political,” said Shahi.
Photo by Julian Barlow.
In 2023, when Shahi first heard news of “English” winning a Pulitzer, he was in rehearsal for Water for Elephants. Despite not knowing playwright Sanaz Toossi or having a chance to read the play yet—he stepped into another room and, overcome with emotion, cried for a moment.
“It was just this really powerful feeling,” Shahi shared—adding that, since he was a kid, he never thought he would see such celebration or esteem over this kind of Iranian representation. “That’s when the play entered my consciousness and my emotional system.”
Soon after, Shahi was asked by The Old Globe, where he had previously worked on a few productions, to direct “English”. He immediately said yes.
“I think I just realized that this story has a long life,” Shahi explained. “There is still so much to learn from the text. I think it’s one of the Great American Plays and I don’t say that lightly.”
Photo by Julian Barlow.
Shahi expressed excitement about directing “English” at TWH and collaborating with an entirely new cast and crew for this production. He shared that there was a moment, in rehearsal, when two actors realized how their own assumptions about the characters they were playing were changing.
“I think there are so many interpretations of these characters that could ring true, that the job of what we’re doing here in Hartford, what the job of the creative team is, is to create our version that feels the trustest extension of the people that are involved in this production,” said Shahi.
On the topic of ethnicity and nationality pertaining to the play’s cast and crew, Shahi emphasized that it’s most important to him that his team creates “a synthesis of diverse viewpoints,” and that’s solely possible when team members can bring their unique backgrounds, identities, and experiences into the production.
“Hopefully, as a director, we can create a space where everyone feels like we are being stretched and they are contributing,” said Shahi. With that said, Shahi is working with a mostly Iranian team—the first time he’s ever worked with this many Iranian individuals on a creative team before.
Shahi also spoke about the play’s creative and stunning score by Iranian sound designer and composer Bahar Royaee.
“I think the sound design in this production is absolutely, weirdly, one of the most unique things about this production,” said Shahi, who’s a musician himself. “It’s really rooted in that question, ‘As you’re trying to become something else, what happens to the old thing?’ And I am so fascinated by how we can synthesize and distort classic Iranian instruments to sound unidentifiable.”
The “English” cast includes: Neagheen Homaifar, starring as Marjan; Sahar Milani as Elham; Afsheen Misaghi as Omid; Pantea Ommi as Roya; and Anahita Monfared as Goli. The crew includes: Sadra Tehrani on set design, Dina El-Aziz on costume design, Mary Ellen Stebbins on lighting design, Bahar Royaee on sound design, and Gregory Jafari Van Acker as the casting director.
Learn more about the performance and purchase tickets at twhartford.org or by calling the box office at 860-527-7838. Tickets range from $25 to $70. The show runs for approximately 100 minutes with no intermission.
Belén Dumont is a freelance reporter and associate editor at The Fulcrum.
TheaterWorks Hartford Presents “English”: A Deep Dive Into Language, Culture, and Identity was originally published by CT Latino News and is republished with permission.
Kirk, a prominent 31-year-old conservative organizer and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed during a public debate at Utah Valley University. The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody the following day. Kirk’s death follows a series of politically motivated attacks, including assassination attempts on Trump, the firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home, and the killing of Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in Minnesota.
U.S. President Donald walks toward reporters while departing the White House on September 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Utah Governor Spencer Cox offered a prayer that many Americans may have whispered silently: “Please don’t let it be one of us.” The suspect, Tyler Robinson, was indeed a resident of Utah. Cox’s words—raw, reflexive, and revealing—expose the deeper fracture beneath the tragedy: the fear that political violence is no longer an aberration, but a symptom of something endemic, something homegrown.
Meacham, author of The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, framed the moment with chilling clarity: "Political violence erupts in America when there is an existential question—who is an American? Who deserves to be included in ‘We the people,’ or ‘All men being created equal’?” he said. “When that is in tension, when we don’t have common agreement about that, then, if you look at it historically, violence erupts." These are not rhetorical flourishes. They are the fault lines of a democracy under siege.
Cox’s plea—“not one of us”—is more than a governor’s hope for civic innocence. It is a mirror held up to a state, a party, a nation. It asks whether the violence we condemn is truly foreign, or whether it has taken root in our own soil, fed by grievance, tribalism, and the erosion of democratic norms.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks at a press conference flanked by FBI director Kash Patel following the fatal shooting of political activist Charlie Kirk during an event at Utah Valley University on September 12, 2025 in Orem, Utah. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
The historian urged political leaders and citizens alike to recommit to the foundational principles of peaceful debate and democratic engagement. “When we lose the capacity to engage in argument and dissent and debate peaceably, we are breaking faith with the American covenant,” he said. “And the American covenant is that we live in contention with each other, but we’re not at each other’s throats."
That covenant is not a relic. It is a living promise: that we can argue, protest, and disagree without resorting to bloodshed. When that promise fails, we are no longer debating policy—we are debating personhood.
The question now is not just who pulled the trigger, but what culture loaded the gun. What rhetoric normalized the threat? What silence enabled the escalation?
The segment concluded with Meacham’s call to action: “Make the case. Tell the story. What do you want the country to be? This is why history matters, I think, more than ever, because there’s not a hell of a lot going on in the present that you want to say, ‘Yeah, we want more of that.’ You want to tell the story of Omaha Beach. You want to tell the story of the Pettus Bridge. You want to tell the story of Gettysburg. Because those were moments where imperfect people actually created something better.”
Cox’s prayer and Meacham’s warning converge on a single truth: democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires restraint, recognition, and a shared belief that the other side is still part of the whole. Without that, we are not a republic—we are a battlefield.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network. Balta is the only person to serve twice as president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
