Torange Yeghiazarian (Photo by David Allen Studio)

Torange Yeghiazarian: Threading an Artistic Journey

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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.

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Additionally, Torange has written extensively about contemporary theater in Iran, with her work published in various reviews and encyclopedias. As a director and author, she has received numerous awards and was honored by the Cairo International Theatre Festival and the Symposium on Equity in the Entertainment Industry at Stanford University.

For more information, please visit: torangeyeghiazarian.com or goldenthread.org.

Dear Torange, Golden Thread Productions is unique in the American theater scene for its focus on Middle Eastern subjects. Is your main audience primarily Middle Eastern? Do you ever worry that this focus might lead to a kind of cultural ghettoization?

This was in fact the warning my graduate advisor at San Francisco State gave me, don’t box yourself in! But the stories I wanted to tell had to do with the Middle East, so the box, if true, felt appropriate. Our establishing Golden Thread was inspired by and built on the efforts of the Asian American and Latinx theater movements. I wanted our community to have a louder voice. At the same time, I wanted to break the assumptions about what Middle Eastern theater is, what our stories are, and who is represented. Being Armenian-Iranian, it was important to me to represent the full diversity of the Middle East.

Our audience at Golden Thread is a mix of Middle Eastern, and non-Middle Easterners. Middle Easterners appreciate the opportunity to celebrate their culture and to see their stories told on American stages in English where a wider audience can experience them. In addition, our stories resonate with many from other immigrant communities, as well as those looking to learn more about the Middle East. I am proud to say that at Golden Thread, we have successfully presented a wide range of aesthetics from realism to abstract multi-media pieces to ensemble-generated physical theater with live music.

Your theatrical career is quite impressive, so I assume you have never regretted choosing the arts — despite the fact that doctors tend to earn more!

Correct. I have no regrets about choosing theater instead of medicine. But I love science and often incorporate my knowledge of medicine in my plays.

Torange Yeghiazarian

Really? And how?

For example, in my play “444 Days,” a character suffers from a very specific disease the details of which are central to the plot line.

I am sure you inherited your artistic talent from your mother, Vida Ghahremani, a renowned film and stage actress in both Iran and the U.S. Despite many cultural similarities, intermarriages between Armenians and Persians have always been rare. What is it like to carry this dual heritage?

My Armenian grandmother was born in Tabriz, Iran, and my grandfather in Davalu, nowadays Ararat, in Armenia. They met in Tabriz. I grew up primarily with my Armenian father’s family in an artistic environment. My father, David Yeghiazarian, ran the night club Couchini in Tehran and was a talented music producer, writer and painter. My aunt, Mary Yeghiazarian, was educated in Yerevan’s music conservatory and worked extensively at Iran’s Ministry of Art and Culture as a choir conductor, in addition to being a fantastic singer. My sister, Termeh Yeghiazarian, was a musician and visual artist. There were always musicians, writers, and filmmakers hanging out in our house, both Iranian and international artists.

My dual heritage deeply shaped my identity and world outlook. Being both inside and outside cultures is natural to me. Having experienced that in Iran should have made the move to the US easier but of course, it was not easy at all. But finding community in Nor Seroond helped me adjust. It was there that I learned to read and write Armenian to be able to act in an Armenian play. It was “Digineh ge Nnjeh” (Madame is Taking a Nap), a comedy where I played the part of the house-keeper!

I reconnected with my mother more after moving to California to study theater. Through our work together in theater, I was able to know my mother better and appreciate her breathtaking acting skills, as well as writing and painting. She had such an amazing presence on stage. Even when she was standing still, all eyes were on her. I learned a lot from my parents. They were both rule-breaking pioneers guided by passion. I should be so lucky to stand on their shoulders.

Armenian themes have also been part of your work. You were the first to stage Leslie Ayvazian’s once-famous play “Nine Armenians” in San Francisco.

Yes, it was such a joy to discover Leslie’s play. I so identified with the family dynamics and the personalities she depicted. It was our biggest production to date at Golden Thread in 2002, and we would not have been able to do justice to the play without the Armenian community’s support. This play was my introduction to the Bay Area’s vibrant Armenian community and its many talented artists. It led to my helping produce The Armenian Film Festival in San Francisco and developing and producing the world premiere of Night Over Erzinga by Adriana Sevan at Golden Thread. Bay Area’s Armenian community made this all possible.

You have also written plays with Armenian themes. Your play ABAGA (The Future) (2001) tells the story of a love affair between an Armenian man and a Turkish woman in Constantinople in 1915 and beyond. Do you think such love stories have become a cliché in literary works about historical conflicts?

An intimate love story is often my entry into a global political conflict. In “ABAGA,” I wanted to depict the continued cycle of violence and inhumanity from the Armenian Genocide to the Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948, without actually showing any of it. Constantinople and Jerusalem were major urban hubs at the time with thriving diverse populations. Then it all changed… I wanted to trace the change and its impact on people’s lives through the personal story of one family. Golden Thread produced a 20-minute version of “ABAGA” at the ReOrient Festival. But the play is actually longer and could even be a film.

Except of this, in my play “Princess Tamar Rescues Nazar the Brave” I combined the tales of Kaj Nazar and Akhtamar as told by Toumanian, to create a story within a story. Joyce van Dyke’s “The Girl’s War,” which I directed, also has an Armenian theme.

Have you been in Armenia and do you have future Armenia-related projects?

Yes, I have visited Armenia twice and would love to visit again. My next Armenia-related project is about Komitas. I am dreaming about a play that depicts a moment in his life and music. He lived such an expansive life with many accomplishments. It may be difficult to do it justice but I’m hoping to have a clearer idea after reading his biography by Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian, Archeology of Madness, Komitas, Portrait of an Armenian Icon.

 

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