Courageous Voices
A Thousand Splendid Suns
January 17 – March 1, 2020
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Publicist
Lauren McMillen
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Phone
202-600-4055
“Gorgeously captivating performance.”
“Emotionally Stirring!”
Adapted by Ursula Rani Sarma
Based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini
Directed by Carey Perloff
Adapted from the New York Times bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner), the lives of two Afghan women are inextricably bound together. In the war-ravaged Kabul, Miriam and Laila become unlikely allies in the face of the insurmountable odds of a brutal and oppressive way of life. Hopes of a new life lead to an unselfish and shocking decision, changing the course of their futures forever. Called “emotionally stirring” (Los Angeles Times), this gripping and heart-rending fight for survival will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is generously sponsored by Beth Newburger Schwartz and Michele and Allan Berman.
A Thousand Splendid Suns runs approximately two and a half hours, including one 15-minute intermission.
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Cast
HEND AYOUB
SARAH COREY
LANNA JOFFREY
HAYSAM KADRI
JOSEPH KAMAL
JASON KAPOOR
MIRIAN KATRIB
RAVI MAMPARA
JUSTIN XAVIER POYDRAS
YOUSOF SULTANI
NIKITA TEWANI
ANTOINE YARED
HEND AYOUB
HEND AYOUB (Mariam) is excited to be making her Arena Stage debut. Her credits include: Broadway’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams, as well as its previous run at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum; Kiss (Yale Repertory Theatre); Veils (world premiere, Portland Stage; Barrington Stage). Television credits include: Homeland, Orange Is the New Black, The Looming Tower, Madam Secretary, Royal Pains, Feed the Beast, Comedy Central’s The Watch List and recurring roles on Transparent and Damages. In film, she co-starred in the Emmy Award-winning film Death of a President and the award-winning film Private. www.hendayoub.com.
SARAH COREY
SARAH COREY (Ensemble) is making her Arena Stage debut. Most recently she played The Grocer’s Wife and Mrs. Beouf in Rhinoceros at Tantrum Theater. Favorite NYC credits include: Love and Real Estate (59e59) and A Letter to Harvey Milk (Acorn Theatre). In D.C. she has been seen as Barbara DeMarco in Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center; Anne/Ana/Aminah in Oil at Olney Theatre Center; and in Love Sick at Theater J. Other favorite regionals include: Anisah in the world premiere of In the Book of at Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Rose Gellman in Caroline, or Change at Speakeasy Stage; Kate in Lippa’s Wild Party at New Repertory Theatre (IRNE award); and Kate Jerome in both Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound at Oldcastle Theatre Company. AB Princeton University. www.sarah-corey.com.
LANNA JOFFREY
LANNA JOFFREY (Fariba / Nana) is thrilled to make her Arena Stage debut reprising her role in A Thousand Splendid Suns (The Old Globe, A.C.T. and Seattle Rep.). Based in London, Lanna recently performed The Eyes of the Night (Cervantes Theatre); The Time of Our Lies chronicling the life of Howard Zinn (Park Theatre); and They Promised Her the Moon honoring the life of Jerrie Cobb (Old Globe). Lanna's verbatim play of women’s war stories, Valiant,has travelled the U.K. and U.S. — going to Edinburgh Fringe, Theatre503, Women and War Festival, NY Fringe, InterAct Theatre and others. Lanna earned awards for performances at NYFringe (Valiant), IRNE in Boston (Nine Parts of Desire) and Denver Ovation (1001). Her spoken word and writing have been featured online and in print. www.lannajoffrey.com
HAYSAM KADRI
HAYSAM KADRI (Rasheed / Fight Captain) has appeared in A Thousand Splendid Suns (Seattle Rep, The Old Globe, Theatre Calgary, A.C.T.); Enron, To Kill a Mockingbird, Much Ado about Nothing, The Crucible and A Christmas Carol (Theatre Calgary); The Hollow, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Twelve Angry Men, Dr. Jeykll & Mr. Hyde and Black Coffee (Vertigo Theatre); Richard III, Macbeth, Othello, William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead and The Winter’s Tale (The Shakespeare Company); and The Last Wife, Cockroach, The Motherfu**er with the Hat and Shakespeare’s Dog (Alberta Theatre Projects). His film and TV credits include: The Revenant and Hell on Wheels. Kadri is artistic producer of The Shakespeare Company and program director of Theatre Calgary’s Shakespeare by the Bow.
JOSEPH KAMAL
JOSEPH KAMAL (Babi / Zaman / Interrogator) will be making his third appearance with Arena, previously seen in Anthems: Culture Clash and Love in Afghanistan. Recently, he was in the Broadway company of the Tony Award-winning musical The Bands Visit. He has appeared in world premieres by Tony Kushner, Ethan Coen, Rajiv Joseph, Charles Mee, Lee Breuer, Betty Shamieh, Herbert Siguenza and Richard Montoya of Culture Clash, and Charles Randolph-Wright, as well as in West Coast premieres and the national tour of plays by Theresa Rebeck and Lynn Nottage. A long time ago he was a company member of The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. Recent television credits include: Murphy Brown, Animal Kingdom, Madame Secretary and Seal Team, among others. He has done a lot of voiceover work including the video game Call of Duty. @JosephKamal8
JASON KAPOOR
JASON KAPOOR (Wakil) is thrilled to be making his D.C. debut at Arena Stage. He has been seen in the Off-Broadway premiere of Ideation by Aaron Loeb and in all of the American Productions of A Thousand Splendid Suns, as well as the Canadian Premiere at Theatre Calgary. He received his B.A. from San Jose State University and an M.A. from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
MIRIAN KATRIB
MIRIAN KATRIB (Laila) most recently appeared as Laila at The Grand Theatre (London)’s production of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Other recent theater credits include: The Prisoner of Tehran (Theatre Passe Muraille) and Me and You (Talisman Theatre). Mirian’s TV credits include: Condor, American Gods and many other commercial credits. Mirian is also an internationally touring musician and singer/songwriter. Instagram @miriankatrib
RAVI MAMPARA
RAVI MAMPARA (Zalmai) performed most recently in A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theater. He has performed at the Theater Lab's Annual Cabaret Benefit, the Shakespeare Theatre’s annual Gala and is an alumnus of Camp Arena Stage where he has been an enthusiastic camper for three summers. He is 10 years old and in fifth grade at Washington Latin. He loves to play soccer and piano, sing, dance and perform. He is an avid musical theater fan aspiring to perform in plays and musicals, to compose music and to choreograph dance. Ravi is thrilled to have the opportunity to join the cast of A Thousand Splendid Suns.
JUSTIN XAVIER POYDRAS
JUSTIN XAVIER POYDRAS (Zalmai) is excited for his first appearance at Arena Stage. He was introduced to musical and drama play production at Capital City PCS (CCPCS) Theatre in Washington, D.C. Beginning in first grade, he has spent the last six years performing notable roles, including Simba (The Lion King); Dr. Seuss (Seussical); Pinocchio (Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit); and his breakout role as Dromio of Syracuse in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (CCPCS Theatre). Previous roles include: Antigounus, Camillo and Polixenes, in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (The Theatre Lab, School of Dramatic Arts). He received the CCPCS “Light Leadership Award” for exemplary school spirit and actively displaying community values of kindness, courage, creativity, responsibility and perseverance. He maintains “Habits of Scholar” goals in all his academic classes at school.
YOUSOF SULTANI
YOUSOF SULTANI (Ensemble) is thrilled to be making his Arena Stage debut! He was most recently seen on stage in And Then There Were None at Drury Lane in Chicago. Other credits include: Photograph 51 (Court Theatre); Heartland (InterAct Theatre); Miss Bennet: Christmas At Pemberley and Guards At The Taj (Milwaukee Repertory Theater); The Doppelgänger: An International Farce and The Fundamentals (Steppenwolf Theater); United Flight 232 (House Theatre); Disappearing Number and Inana (TimeLine Theatre); Othello (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); and The Hundred Flowers Project (Silk Road Rising). Film credits include: Glass House. Television credits include: The Brave (NBC); Empire (FOX); and Chicago Fire (NBC). Yousof received his B.F.A. in performance from Virginia Commonwealth University. He will be dedicating his performance to his father, Wahid Sultani.
NIKITA TEWANI
NIKITA TEWANI (Aziza) is thrilled to be reprising the role of Aziza in her Arena Stage debut. She is part of the original cast that world-premiere at A.C.T. and toured the West-Coast. Off-Broadway, Nikita played Nasrin in The Fall at Soho Playhouse. Regionally, she played Mahwish in The Who and The What at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. She will be seen as a recurring role on an upcoming Netflix Series in 2020. She has co-starred on TV Shows including The Affair (Showtime)and Divorce (HBO) and completed a number of independent films. Most recently, she played the lead role in the upcoming feature film I’ll Meet You There. Nikita received her B.F.A. in drama at NYU Tisch. @NikitaTewani imdb.com/NikitaTewani
ANTOINE YARED
ANTOINE YARED (Tariq / Driver), born in Lebanon and raised in Montreal, has performed in theaters across the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, as well as performing in A Thousand Splendid Suns last year in San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. He most recently appeared in Indecent at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, A Christmas Carol at Soulpepper in Toronto and The Last Wife at the Centaur Theatre in Montreal. He also appeared in Groundling Theatre’s production of LEAR in Toronto. Other career highlights include Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at the Stratford Festival where he spent five seasons appearing in productions like The Madwoman of Chaillot, John Gabriel Borkman, Macbeth, As You Like It, King John, The Alchemist, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Merchant of Venice and Pericles.
Creative
URSULA RANI SARMA
KHALED HOSSEINI
CAREY PERLOFF
STEPHEN BUESCHER
DAVID COULTER
KEN MACDONALD
LINDA CHO
ROBERT WIERZEL
JAKE RODRIGUEZ
HAYSAM KADRI
ANITA MAYNARD-LOSH
DANI BAE
CHRISTI B. SPANN
MARNE ANDERSON
URSULA RANI SARMA
URSULA RANI SARMA (Playwright) is an award-winning writer of Irish-Indian descent. She has written for Abbey Theater, The National Theater London, the American Conservatory Theater, Ambassador Theatre Group, Traverse Theatre, Paines Plough and the BBC, among others. Her recent productions include: Joanne (Clean Break, Soho Theatre); Débris (Théâtre La Licorne); Yerma (West Yorkshire Playhouse); and Birdsong (Abbey Theatre). Sarma has been a writer-in-residence for Paines Plough, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and Royal National Theatre, among others. Most recently, her musical Evening Train with singer Mick Flannery, opened at the Midsummers Festival in Cork in June 2019. Her screen work includes: Delicious, Robot and Scarecrow and Anywhere but Here. Sarma is currently writing for the Abbey Theatre, the BBC, Channel 4, Film 4 and RTE, among others.
KHALED HOSSEINI
KHALED HOSSEINI (Original Book) was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. In 1976, his family relocated to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then the Soviet invasion was underway, so the Hosseini family moved to San Jose, California. Mr. Hosseini went on to become a doctor, practicing medicine as an internist between 1996 and 2004. He is the author of three award-winning and internationally best-selling novels: The Kite Runner (2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) and And the Mountains Echoed (2013). In 2006, Mr. Hosseini was named a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency. After a trip to Afghanistan in this position, he was inspired to establish The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a not-for-profit that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
CAREY PERLOFF
CAREY PERLOFF (Director) is the former Artistic Director of American Conservatory Theater celebrating 25th seasons. She commissioned and developed this adaptation of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Known for innovative productions of classics and for championing new writing and new forms of theatre, she has directed classical plays from around the world, 10 plays by Tom Stoppard (including the American premieres of The Invention of Love and Indian Ink, also at Roundabout Theatre Company, and two productions of Arcadia), and many productions by favorite contemporary writers such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, José Rivera, and Philip Kan Gotanda. Her other productions include Hecuba, Mary Stuart, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Tosca Café, The Voysey Inheritance, Scorched, and Underneath the Lintel. Ms. Perloff is also an award-winning playwright. Her recent play Kinship premiered at the Théâtre de Paris in 2014; Higher won the 2011 Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions Fund Award; and Luminescence Dating premiered in New York at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Ms. Perloff’s book, Beautiful Chaos: A Life in the Theater (City Lights Foundation Books), was selected as San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection for 2016. Before joining A.C.T., she was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company in New York, where she directed the premiere of Ezra Pound’s Elektra, the American premiere of Pinter’s Mountain Language, and many classic works. Named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettresby the French government, Ms. Perloff received a B.A. Phi Beta Kappa in Classics and Comparative Literature from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford.
STEPHEN BUESCHER
STEPHEN BUESCHER (Choreographer) has choreographed Hamlet, Monstress, Orphan of Zhao, Stuck Elevator, Let There Be Love and Underneath the Lintel (American Conservatory Theater); The Imaginary Invalid (Old Globe Theater); Stockholm (Tryptych Theater Company) (nominated for Best Choreography); A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Private Lives (Long Wharf Theater); A Christmas Carol (Trinity Repertory Company); and Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare Santa Cruz). Stephen is currently working on Karen Zacar&1acute;as’ world premiere Copper Children at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Stephen is making his Sundance Film Festival debut working with Shariffa Ali on Atomu, a virtual reality experience. Stephen is a movement professor at UCSD and a graduate of Calarts and the Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theater.
DAVID COULTER
DAVID COULTER (Composer) Since the 1980s, David Coulter has directed, recorded, produced and played with numerous artists such as The Pogues, Kronos Quartet, Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono and Gorillaz. Credits include: The Black Rider (Robert Wilson / Tom Waits), Monkey: Journey to the West (Gorillaz), Double Fantasy Live, Rain Dogs Revisited, Discreet + Oblique: The Music of Brian Eno, Twisted Christmas, In Dreams: David Lynch Revisited, Jim Jarmusch Revisited and Swordfishtrombones Revisited. An Anatomy Act, A Thousand Splendid Suns (A.C.T.), Hamlet (A.C.T.), Ghosts (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Medea (Legion of Honor) and The Eldership Project (Improbable). davidcoulter.co.uk
KEN MACDONALD
KEN MACDONALD (Set Designer) Coming soon
LINDA CHO
LINDA CHO (Costume Designer) Coming soon
ROBERT WIERZEL
ROBERT WIERZEL (Lighting Designer) Coming soon
JAKE RODRIGUEZ
JAKE RODRIGUEZ (Sound Designer) Coming soon
HAYSAM KADRI
HAYSAM KADRI (Associate Director) has appeared in A Thousand Splendid Suns (Seattle Rep, The Old Globe, Theatre Calgary, A.C.T.); Enron, To Kill a Mockingbird, Much Ado about Nothing, The Crucible and A Christmas Carol (Theatre Calgary); The Hollow, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Twelve Angry Men, Dr. Jeykll & Mr. Hyde and Black Coffee (Vertigo Theatre); Richard III, Macbeth, Othello, William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead and The Winter’s Tale (The Shakespeare Company); and The Last Wife, Cockroach, The Motherfu**er with the Hat and Shakespeare’s Dog (Alberta Theatre Projects). His film and TV credits include: The Revenant and Hell on Wheels. Kadri is artistic producer of The Shakespeare Company and program director of Theatre Calgary’s Shakespeare by the Bow.
ANITA MAYNARD-LOSH
ANITA MAYNARD-LOSH (Vocal Coach) is the Director of Community Engagement/Senior Artistic Advisor at Arena Stage. Now in her 16th season at Arena Stage, Anita has been involved in an artistic capacity on 40+ Arena Stage productions: she directed the world premiere of Our War as part of the National Civil War Project, and has been an associate director, text director and vocal/dialect coach on multiple other productions. Anita trained and taught at the American Conservatory Theater, was on the faculty at Webster University, headed the theater department at the University of Alaska Southeast and was the associate artistic director of Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska. Vocal/dialect coaching: ACT, Arena Stage, Kennedy Center, Washington National Opera, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage and the Broadway revival of Ragtime.
DANI BAE
DANI BAE (Stage Manager) is thrilled be at Arena Stage for A Thousand Splendid Suns. She has worked on A Thousand Splendid Suns since its debut at American Conservatory Theater in 2017. Her most recent credits include Testmatch, Her Portmanteau, Heisenberg, The Birthday Party and A Thousand Splendid Suns (American Conservatory Theater); A Thousand Splendid Suns (Seattle Repertory Theatre); Urinetown: The Musical (American Theatre of Actors); and the Bard Music Festival (Bard SummerScape). She has a B.F.A. in stage management from Syracuse University.
CHRISTI B. SPANN
CHRISTI B. SPANN (Replacement Stage Manager) returns to Arena Stage for her seventh season. Recent Arena Stage productions include Junk and Kleptocracy. Christi spent 12 seasons on the stage management staff at the Denver Center Theatre Company and has also worked with The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN; Virginia Repertory Theatre in Richmond, VA; and the Shakespeare Theatre Company here in D.C.
MARNE ANDERSON
MARNE ANDERSON (Assistant Stage Manager) is thrilled to continue her season at Arena Stage with A Thousand Splendid Suns. Arena Stage credits include Disney’s Newsies, Ann, Jubilee, The Heiress, Indecent, Dave,August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, The Great Society, Nina Simone: Four Women, A Raisin in the Sun, Moby Dick, All the Way, King Hedley II, Five Guys Named Moe, The Mountaintop, Metamorphoses, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Arabian Nights and Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
Program PDF
Production Script
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