Press Release: Wish You Were Here Opens

THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF WISH YOU WERE HERE BY PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING ORANGE COUNTY NATIVE SANAZ TOOSSI OPENS TONIGHT AT SOUTH COAST REPERTORY

Performance Added on Feb. 2 Due to Audience Response

FOR PHOTOS OF THE CAST: https://www.scr.org/about/press-room/photos-24-25-season/press-photos-wish-you-were-here/

COSTA MESA, Calif. (Jan. 17, 2025)—South Coast Repertory (Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Director Suzanne Appel) is pleased to bring Pulitzer Prize-winning, Orange County native Sanaz Toossi home with the West Coast premiere of her comedy Wish You Were Here. Directed by Mina Morita, Wish You Were Here wrapped up its preview run last night and runs through Feb. 2 on the Julianne Argyros Stage.

Due to strong audience response, SCR has added an extra performance Sunday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m.

Wish You Were Here came to SCR the same time Toossi’s play, English, made it’s Broadway debut at the Roundabout Theatre Company. It’s running through March 2. 

Toossi attended SCR’s Youth Conservatory before going to college at UC Santa Barbara and graduate school at New York University. She appeared in two productions of A Christmas Carol as Martha Cratchit, and two Summer Players productions. She later worked as an assistant in the Education Department, as an intern in the Literary Department, a production assistant for the Pacific Playwrights Festival and served as an assistant director for several Players productions.

“Wish You Were Here is playwriting at its finest. A gem crafted by Orange County native Sanaz Toossi, and a beautiful addition to our season of work,” Ivers said. “Audiences can expect to laugh even as they are moved by this transformational play. Sanaz writes a personal journey shaped by deep, intimate relationships, ever-enduring and universal truths—all in response to the Iranian Revolution. I’m so excited to share her work with you.”

Appel said “Wish You Were Here beautifully captures the strength and intimacy of female friendship. The confidences Toossi’s characters share will be recognizable to women from every corner of the world. Toossi’s writing is imbued with both her family’s history of emigration and the cultural inheritance of the great Persian poets. SCR’s production is a rare opportunity to see this Pulitzer Prize winner’s extraordinary play at a time when her career is on the rise. In addressing Iran’s past her work resonates deeply with all of us experiencing a rapidly changing world.”

The Play

It’s 1978. Protests break out across Iran as five close girlfriends plan weddings, trade dirty jokes and try to live their young lives. As the revolution escalates, each woman is forced to face an uncertain future by staying in Iran or leaving it. In this enlightened comedy, Toossi chronicles a decade of life, as best friends become friends long lost, searching for the bond that once defined them.”

Toossi wrote Wish You Were Here as a love letter to her mother, who emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, after the Iranian Revolution. A comedy, it deftly mixes hilarious moments with poignancy and loss. Her characters speak with a boldness and revealing nature, inviting audiences into private moments, then subtly guiding them through a range of emotions that illustrate the complexity of friendship.

“The ink on this love letter feels like it is written from Sanaz’s own veins,” Morita said. “She has poured her heart and care into this tribute to her mother, and it is an honor to be invited to direct Wish You Were Here. The women of this world are glorious, brash, and full of life. What they seek and how they love is larger than the time that has passed between us. I feel a profound love and responsibility for each woman and for how Sanaz’s and her mother’s world is wrought onstage. It is important to me that Sanaz and her mother are proud of this production taking place in their hometown.”

The Playwright

An Iranian-American playwright, Toossi won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for English. She had originally planned to go to law school, but changed her mind after attending SCR’s 2013 production of 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog.

“I thought about it every day for, like, a whole year. I was like, ‘These are actual people.’ I thought I could never be a playwright because playwriting is about showing people that you’re smart—that’s what I always thought it was,” she told American Theatre.

“Sanaz has a long and wonderfully diverse history with SCR and it has been one of the true joys of my career to have witnessed her growth as a person and theatre artist over many years,” SCR Conservatory and Educations Program Director Hisa Takakuwa said. “More than any specific moment, what I remember most is watching her grow in confidence and claiming her voice and path. She has always been a storyteller, a wordsmith and a writer, but to begin to claim that publicly, to make the decision to go to NYU, to commit to her calling as a writer/creator, watching that over the years has been truly beautiful to behold.”

Toossi is currently under commission at SCR, Atlantic Theater Company, Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Manhattan Theatre Club. She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow and a recipient of the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Horton Foote Award, Hull-Warriner Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award and the 2023 Obie Award for Best New American Play.

The Director

A celebrated director of new plays, Morita was recently awarded the Wooly Mammoth BOLD Resident Director & Creative Producer position as part of the BOLD Theatre Women’s Leadership Circle. She has directed works by Qui Nguyen, Anna Deavere Smith, Dipika Guha, Lauren Gunderson, Christopher Chen, Dave Harris, Star Finch, Isaac Gomez, Lloyd Suh and Dustin Chinn, among others. Morita’s theatre credits include helming productions at Australia’s National Theatre of Parramatta and La Boite, Guthrie Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, Campo Santo, Bay Area Children’s Theatre and Crowded Fire Theatre Company, among others.

Her awards include the inaugural FrontOffice Mid-Career Director’s Award, Theatre Bay Area’s 2014 Outstanding Direction of a Musical, recognition as a 40@40 member for her impact on Bay Area Theatre by Theatre Bay Area, and a Shellie Award for Best Director in 2018. Yale University recognized Morita as a Beinecke Fellow in 2022.

The Cast

Awni Abdi-Bahri is now playing the role of Nazanin. She joins Sahar Bibiyan (Rana), Tara Grammy (Salme), Mitra Jouhari (Zari), and Artemis Pebdani (Shideh) in what is an accomplished cast beyond the stage.

Abdi-Bahri (Instagram handle @awni.joon) has performed on Broadway in POTUS or Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive (Shubert Theatre) and Off-Broadway in Persian Pod (Ars Nova), Bismillah (Wild Project), and The Welcoming Committee (The Lark). Her regional credits include Wish You Were Here at Yale Repertory. As a writer, her latest theatrical play, Three Tall Persian Women, had its world premiere at Shakespeare and Company, which she also starred in this past summer and fall to glowing reviews. Abdi-Bahri returns to SCR for the first time since appearing in the 2007 production of A Christmas Carol as a student of the SCR Theatre Conservatory.

Bibiyan (@saharbibiyan) has appeared in Uncut Gems, “Mr. Robot,” “Little America,” “Chicago Justice,” and “Bull.” She is also the voice of Diman in the video game Just Cause 3 and appeared in the Guthrie Theater, Goodman Theatre and Berkeley Repertory productions of English and Yale Repertory’s production of Wish You Were Here.

Grammy (@taragrammy) is a host of “Persia’s Got Talent,” part of the “Got Talent” franchise. She also starred in the romantic comedy, A Simple Wedding, alongside Maz Jobrani and Rita Wilson. Her theatre credits include English at Studio Theatre and The Old Globe.

Jouhari (@mitrajouhari) is a writer/actor/comedian who has performed sold-out comedy shows all over the country. Her on-screen and voice acting credits include “Abbott Elementary,” “I Think You Should Leave,” “The Bear,” “Broad City,” “Clone High,” The Big Sick, “Search Party,” “Digman” and “The History of the World, Part II.”

Pebdani’s credits include playing Artemis in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Vice President Susan Ross on “Scandal,” and recurring roles in “The Goldbergs,” “Modern Family,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “Masters of Sex,” among others. She has performed voiceover work in Disney Channel’s “Big City Greens,” Hulu’s “The Croods: Family Tree,” and on “Star Trek: Lower Decks.” Pebdani (@therealsmartemis) returns to the role of Shideh, which she played in Wish You Were Here at Playwrights Horizons.

The Creative Team

The design and creative team includes Afsoon Pajoufar, scenic design; Shahrzad Mazaheri, costume design; Pablo Santiago, lighting design, and Veronika Vorel, sound design. Ana Bayat is the cultural dramaturg and dialect coach, Joanne DeNaut, CSA is the casting director, Maisie Chan is the production manager, Darlene Miyakawa is the production stage manager, and Lauren Buangan is the assistant stage manager.

Wish You Were Here received generous support from Tim and Marianne Kay/Argyros Family Foundation. SCR’s cultural partner is the Farhang Foundation.

Tickets are now on sale and range in price from $35 to $114, with additional discounts available for educators, seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased online at www.scr.org or by phone at (714) 708-5555. More information is available at www.scr.org.