Presence of an Absence Staged Reading

In the bustling metropolis of Toronto in 2024, a collective of emerging Iranian playwrights convenes periodically. Their mission: to unearth and revive the silenced voices of women playwrights from early 20th-century Iran, long suppressed by socio-political and religious oppression and censorship.

Amid the hustle of daily life, they dedicate their late-night hours to the painstaking study of these forgotten scripts, often concluding their discussions as the first light of dawn breaks through the darkness. On these nights, they step into the worlds their predecessors built, uncovering reflections of their own lives in present-day Toronto—more than a century later.

Despite the relative freedoms of their new home, they find themselves grappling with echoes of the past, navigating the intricate balance between tradition and modernity.

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Producer: CDTPS PhD student Aylin Salahshoor.