Seeds of Time Festival.  In collaboration with Play On Shakespeare, this groundbreaking three-week festival presents six teams of artists exploring and reenvisioning world classics with interactive public events, inviting audiences to witness the evolution of classic narratives and engage in conversations about their relevance today. Special attention will be given to teaching the insights and skills of dramaturgy.

LEILI & MAJNUN
An epic love story, retold by Torange Yeghiazarian.  

A fusion of ancient poetry and contemporary performance, Leili & Majnun is a dynamic staging of the legendary 12th-century Persian epic by Nizami Ganjavi through bilingual storytelling, physical theater, and a lyrical score that blends Iranian, Arabic, Kurdish, and Western musical traditions. This ensemble-based adaptation centers Leili’s perspective —often sidelined in traditional tellings—and uses the form of Naghali, Iran’s classical mode of epic narration, to break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience. and music composed by Sirvan Manhoobi, the piece creates a vivid theatrical landscape that feels both timeless and urgent. Whether exploring the feminist reclamation of myth, the challenge of staging poetry, or the hybridity of cross-cultural aesthetics, Leili & Majnun invites audiences into a conversation between centuries, languages, and worlds.  

About the Artist:  

Torange Yeghiazarian is an award-winning playwright and director passionate about building community through theater. Her artistic practice reflects her values of radical hospitality and inclusiveness aimed at disrupting stereotypes of the Middle East both within the community and outside of it. A transplant from the 1979 Iranian revolution, Torange believes that life is inherently political and that the personal and the global are inseparable. Her plays frequently explore the cultural divide with tenderness and humor from an immigrant woman’s perspective. As a director, Torange’s focus has been on new plays, experimenting with Middle Eastern performance traditions, and staging poetry. Dubbed the “Margo Jones–founding-mother-figure of Middle Eastern–American theatre”, Torange founded Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East, and served as its Executive Artistic Director for twenty-five years. Plays published in New Iranian Plays, Performing Iran, Salaam.Peace Anthology of Middle Eastern American Drama.