YEREVAN/OAKLAND — For many years, I have been in touch with American theater director, actress, producer, playwright, and translator Torange Yeghiazarian. Born in 1964 in Tehran, she received a medical education, specializing in clinical microbiology, and worked in the healthcare sector for 15 years. Later, she earned a master’s degree in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University. Before moving to the Bay Area, she lived in Boston, where she was an activist in the Nor Seroond (New Generation) Armenian youth organization, serving as its president for one term.
In 1996, she founded Golden Thread Productions, a theater company, and served as its Executive Artistic Director until 2021. At Golden Thread, she launched ReOrient Festival of Short Plays, featuring diverse voices of the Middle East in one evening, and Golden Thread Fairytale Players, creating and touring original plays inspired by Middle Eastern folktales and children’s stories including “Leyla’s Quest for Flight,” “Nasrudin’s Magnificent Journey to Samarqand,” “Princess Tamar Rescues Nazar the Brave” and “21 Days That Change the Year.”
Yeghiazarian has written several plays, including “The Tutor,” “The Fifth String,” “Isfahan Blues,” “444 Days,” “Call Me Mehdi,” “Thanksgiving at Khodabakhshian’s,” “Waves,” “Behind Glass Windows” and “Operation No Penetration: Lysistrata 97.”
She has directed numerous plays, including “English, The Language of Wild Berries,” “Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love & Combat,” “Oh My Sweet Land,” “Tamam,” “Voice Room,” “I Sell Souls,” “Twelve Women in a Cell,” “The Myth of Creation” and many others.
As an actress, Torange has performed in “The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad,” “The Last Supper,” “A Woman Alone” and in the films “The Last Illusion” and “Brilliant Mind.”
She has translated a number of contemporary plays from Iran, and her translation and stage adaptation of Nizami’s “Layla & Majnun” has been published on Gleeditions.com. Most recently, she translated and directed a full-length stage adaptation of it with an ensemble of actors and musicians.