“English” – a play that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama – is currently running in a limited engagement at the Bram Goldsmith Theater at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. This run of 24 performances began April 4 and ends April 26.
“It was truly a kind of transcendent experience doing it there,” said actress Marjan Neshat of bringing the play to Los Angeles. She plays a teacher guiding students through an English exam in Tehran, Iran, in a story that touches on identity, belonging and starting over.
Written by Sanaz Toossi, the play first debuted Off-Broadway, won the Pulitzer and then hit Broadway. In Los Angeles, one of the largest Iranian communities outside of Iran now has access to a live production of the story, directed by Knud Adams in an Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theater Company production.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 08: Marjan Neshat attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 08, 2025 in New York City.Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images“The audience was so alive and with us,” said Neshrat. She told KNX’s Nataly Tavidian that the play tends to bring out emotions in its audiences, but through its drama it’s also a comedy.
In a press release, the work was described as a “quietly powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam in a storefront school near Tehran, where family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities, and represent a new life.”
To purchase single tickets, subscriptions and for more information, please call 310-746-4000 (Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) or visit TheWallis.org.
