Our Sweet Life by the Pacific Ocean, Houshang Touzie's play about a modern Iranian family, gets a Manhattan reading starring the actor-playwright and his Oscar-nominated wife 7 PM March 28 at New York Theatre Workshop.
Noor Theatre, a company dedicated to supporting, developing and producing the work of theatre artists of Middle-Eastern descent, is presenting the reading of the play's English translation.
Shidan Majidi directs Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award-winning actress Shohreh Aghdashloo ("24," "House of Sand and Fog") as well as acclaimed writer-actor Houshang Touzie.
The play is billed as "a romantic comedy about an Iranian man struggling to provide for his family, revive the passion in his marriage, and communicate with a rebellious son raised far from his homeland."
Expect the Daryani family to "roll out the Persian carpet, serve tea and debate the uprisings in the Middle East while their punk son and his gothic girlfriend are inspired to join forces with the youth of the Green Movement in Iran through Facebook to plot a peaceful cyber revolution."
Aghdashloo is an internationally acclaimed actress whose past credits include roles in television's "Law & Order," "Matlock" and "24," and on film in "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (2005) and "House of Sand and Fog" (2003), for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and won the Independent Spirit Award. In 2009, Aghadashloo won an Emmy Award for her role in the HBO original miniseries, "House of Saddam."
Touzie is a renowned Iranian playwright and actor. He has written and acted in numerous plays in both English and Farsi. His film credits include "America So Beautiful," "The Guests of the Hotel Astoria," "Checkpoint," "Into the Night" and "Ferestedah."
Majidi's directing credits include Miss Saigon (North American tour); and Century (starring Rainn Wilson). For the past decade he's been working for producer Cameron Mackintosh on musicals including Cats, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, The Phantom of the Opera and Mary Poppins. In 2009 he co-produced the musical Yank!, for which he was nominated by the Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical.