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Video: Inside Opening Night of ENGLISH on Broadway
Jan 31, 2025
The best of Broadway gathered at the Todd Haimes Theatre to celebrate opening night of English-Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer Prize-winning play English, directed by Knud Adams. Watch in this video as the whole company comes together to celebrate the special occasion and tells us all about the new play.
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I mean, it feels like a cliche to say it's a dream come true, but like nothing in my life
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like being an immigrant kid was leading to this. And it feels really special
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Sanas Tussi's Pulitzer Prize winning play English has come to Roundabout Theatre Company
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and we're here on opening night to celebrate with the company. You know, we did this show together three years ago on Off-Broadway
0:26
and I think what I feel so grateful for is that this is
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play with this cast. We love each other and that it's all our Broadway debuts. I couldn't
0:34
have dreamed of a better scenario to have my Broadway debut. Oh, I'm feeling all the feelings
0:40
I'm nervous. I kind of feel like I'm going to throw up. I'm very excited. My parents are coming
0:45
I haven't seen them yet. I hope they like it. I mean, they are going to like it. But yeah
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it's all the emotions sort of all at once. My heart is in my throat. I think I wrote the cast a message
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today and I said, I think this is what dreams are made of and it feels really weird to say
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that, but truly it's been a difficult here in a lot of ways, and this is just a little surreal to believe
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I can even say it a dream come true because I didn even know it was a dream I could have But to be here as an Iranian as a queer Iranian making my Broadway debut
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it's, I hope that my community sees that as a step forward and up
1:25
It's just such a personal play. I feel like everything, my entire lived experience has led up to this moment in a way
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and has prepared me for playing this part and for being in the world of this play
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so to get to do something that's this personal, I don't even think I ever could have imagined that
1:43
You know, when I was a kid, I thought, oh, maybe one day I'll do Chekhov or Shakespeare
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You know, like, it never occurred to me that I could do something that would be this close to home
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I feel like Middle Easterners for so long have been tasked and giving a history lesson or being like
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oh, we're from this part. And we are, you know, accented and otherized
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And I feel like in this play, they are the most themselves when they're speaking the way that we speak
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And so it feels like it's a play that actually is about Middle Easterners
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but it could be about anyone who is trying to learn a language or to fit in
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And at the same time, we get to show who we are through behavior and through romance and through humor
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which I think is very rare. You know I think from the outside it seems like this play is a play about four students and a teacher learning English But really at the heart it about what it like to be an insider and what it like to be an outsider
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And I think all audience members can resonate with what it's like to be on the inside and to be on the outside
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And we've all felt that way. I feel that this is a representation of these people in a way that has never been done before
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It's not about tragedy. It's not about misfortune. It's about struggle, which everyone has
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And one thing I said about this play is I think these women, these Iranian characters
3:01
get to be seen as witty, as people who have desires, as people who have regrets, resentments, hopes
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They're fabulous. They're beautiful. They're funny. And I'm so glad that we get to share this with people because it's never been done like this before
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It's so organic between you and the audience. What that whole feeling is like for you doing this play
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the way it's been directed and written. You know, Knut and Sanaz, I feel like, are both kind of magicians
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in their own way. They're very specific in particular. They really strive for excellence and beauty in every moment And I think you know just like you said there is a certain magic that happens in the play with the audience because we say
3:49
little, but we say a lot and living in that space in the unsaid
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with the audience is beautiful when it's working and I think it is. And I think Knut and Sanaas wrote
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that and Knut put that in a relief. And so that is
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something we don't get to do a lot. So this is truly, it's truly, it's truly
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gift for any actor who's interested in what we actually do. I mean, I think what Sinaas and her company has created is, you know, shattering
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And the success of the play around the world has created so much opportunity for so many artists
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And for my part, I was just really honored to be, you know
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Sanaz's chosen partner in making sure the play is authentic and beautiful
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and disrupts some of our audiences' associations with what, that world might look like on stage
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I mean, it's so meaningful to hear the responses from folks who have immigrated or had to learn a
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second language or struggled to be heard and understood. I think, yeah, seeing the impact of the play, which everyone has been, you know, the journey
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of a lifetime
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