Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater & Music Theater and cosponsored by Princeton Humanities Initiative and Princeton University’s 250th Anniversary Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education, Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES), Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.
A Moment of Silence
by Mohammad Yaghoubi
Run Time
Approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes, with no intermission.
Program Notes
The story takes place in Tehran, Iran.
Time:
Twenty-year period from 1980 to 2000
View a timeline that gives a brief overview of historical events in Iran and overlaps with A Moment of Silence (1977-2025)
Setting:
Shirin’s 3 bedroom apartment.
Sohrab and Hasti’s 2-bedroom apartment.
Content Advisory
This production uses the sound of airstrikes and contains mentions of suicide.
Special Notes
Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance.
Accessibility
Berlind Theatre is an accessible venue with wheelchair and companion seating available. The November 7 performance will be open/live captioned (CART). An assistive listening system is available and headphones can be requested from ushers. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations, including Berlind Theatre. Attendees in need of other access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.
Cast
Shiva: Isabella Rivera ’27*
Shirin: Natalia Bonilla ’29
Jimmy (Jamshid): Kian Petlin ’28
Sheida: Tima Alshuabi ’28*
Hasti: Anika Reddy Chapalapalli ’28*
Sohrab: Dante Kanterezhi-Gatto ’29*
Voices on the phone: John Heitz ’28*, Emily Yang ’26*, Kristen Tan ’26*, Alexander Picoult ’26*, AJ Abdullah
Musicians
Strings: Oleksandra Vyentseva, Ekatrina Vovk, Samantha Bounkeua
Vocals: Laura Gabriel, Mahsa Dehkordi
Klavier and Synthesizers: Pedram Babaiee
Original music composed and produced by: Pedram Babaiee
Production Team
Director: Nikoo Mamdoohi
Set Design: Omid Akbari
Costume Design: Afsaneh Aayani
Lighting Design: Alexander Picoult ’26*
Composer: Pedram Babaiee
Sound Design: Kristen Tan ’26*
Dramaturg: Q-mars Haeri
Assistant Dramaturg: Nadine Allache ’26*
Stage Manager: Milan Eldridge
Sound Engineer: AJ Abdullah
Assistant Stage Manager: Hellen Ding ’27*
Scenic Artist: Carlyn Perlow
Stitchers: Tara Moriarty, Raven Reid ’28, Charlotte Young ’27, Naomi Gage ’29
Wardrobe Supervisor: Ayden Mackenzie
Berlind Electrician: Javier Moreno
Berlind Rail Crew: Tyshaun “Tone” Williams, Dylan Harris
A2, Assistant Stage Manager: Alexandria Chery
Lobby Display
Multimedia Artist: Etzu Shaw
Dramaturgical Team: Ava Kronman ’26*, Marlie Kass ’27*, Twyla Colburn ’27*
*denotes a student minoring in the Program in Theater & Music Theater
Faculty Advisors
Aaron Landsman, Co-Producer
Jane Cox, Faculty Advisor and Community Director
Tess James, Faculty Lighting Advisor
Madeleine Hebert, Lighting Tutor
A Note from the Director
When something happens in Iran, I hear about it, I read about it, I look at images and videos, yet it still feels like something that has happened once in a dream from which I have awakened. Only a strong emotion lingers, one that I want to hold on to, to remember and to keep close. The emotion, the memory, the dream, is fleeting.
This has been my experience living so far from home. My family, the house I grew up in, and all my roots are far far away. I get to go there once in a while, much less frequently than I wish. Everytime I go, I feel like Shiva, waking up to witness what has happened only after the fact, and only to experience it for a few days, maybe weeks, until I return, or as the play suggests, until I fall asleep again.
As you watch the show, I invite you to dream along with us, see images and hear sounds of a place that many of us still know as our home. As we tell you stories of people we know, and people who have been, and people who are us. A story like many others that we live but is untold when it travels.
With heart,
Nikoo Mamdoohi
A Note from the Dramaturg
In the crowded theatre scene of Tehran in the 2000s and 2010s, finding tickets to Mohammad Yaghoubi’s plays was like finding treasure. College students would form long queues in front of box offices on Sunday afternoons to score the half-price tickets reserved for them on this day. Inside the theaters, every seat was filled, every aisle was packed, and the theaters would hand out cushions to those who were late to the queue but lucky enough to get unseated tickets, so they could sit more comfortably on the ground. Sitting on the ground meant being the closest to the world of the play. This closeness captured the spirit of Yaghoubi’s theater: raw, direct, and deeply human.
There was a reason for this hype. Yaghoubi’s work was both fresh and well-crafted. On the one hand, he staged plays about political events that had happened only months before the opening night. The characters and stories felt immediate and alive. On the other hand, his plays had beautiful dramatic arcs, were full of creative formal devices, and were performed by some of the best theatre actors of the time, such as Aida Keykhaii, Baran Kosari, Ali Sarabi, and Houman Barghnavard, among others. Audiences could see themselves, their friends, and their families in the characters. Anyone who has done theatre long enough knows how rare it is to create something both so carefully made and so attuned to its moment.
The story of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) has often been told on a grand scale as a story of ideology, power, and geopolitical transformation. Yet A Moment of Silence turns to the quieter, more intimate dimensions of those years. Yaghoubi’s play explores how the Revolution and war entered homes, how they created and disrupted love, friendship, and family, and how real people navigated those changes through humor, curiosity, fear, and–of course—silence.
Nearly 25 years after its premiere, A Moment of Silence still endures. The technologies it portrays may seem dated, but their dramaturgical use remains strikingly original. Yaghoubi employs headphones and cameras to reveal the characters’ point of view, drawing us into their most private spaces. Telephones, by contrast, become instruments of intrusion, devices that break the boundaries of safety. Here, technology is not merely a stage prop but a way of revealing who the characters are and how they connect, withdraw, or reach toward one another.
For Yaghoubi, theater is a living and breathing form. He is unafraid to revisit and reshape his work, believing that no living thing should be left without care. In 2023, he revised A Moment of Silence in response to Iran’s women’s movement, reflecting his belief that women are at the forefront of social change. The version now on stage is this newer iteration, one that listens closely to the voices of the present while carrying the echoes of the past.
What does a play from 2001 Iran have to say to us in this moment and place? In my conversations with the students working on the production, many spoke about how the play’s questions—about freedom of speech, personal autonomy, political change, and also about hope, fear, and belonging—resonate deeply with their own experiences and concerns today. Through Torange Yeghiazarian’s thoughtful translation, the play feels both accessible and meaningful to non-Iranian audiences, bridging cultural distances while preserving its specificity. For me, A Moment of Silence is an example of how theater can make history more tangible and personal, while also building bridges between people.
— Q-mars Haeri
Talkback Events
November 1 with Mohammad Yaghoubi
Following the 8 p.m. performance in the Berlind Rehearsal Room (off the Berlind lower lobby). Mohammad Yaghoubi will join via Zoom. Refreshments provided by local Persian bakery Bita Sweets.
November 7 with Torange Yeghiazarian
Pre-show talk at 5 p.m., prior to the 8 p.m. performance in the Berlind Rehearsal Room (off the Berlind lower lobby). Torange Yeghiazarian, founder of Golden Thread Productions, the first American theater company focused on the Middle East, will share her story of founding and leading the company and establishing it as a vital platform for Middle Eastern voices on the U.S. stage. As the translator of A Moment of Silence, she will discuss the play’s impact and significance within the American theater landscape. Together, we will consider theater as embodied translation and explore how international performance deepens our understanding of cultures beyond headlines. The conversation will be moderated by Q-Mars Haeri, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies and presented in collaboration with the Center.
More Events Related to A Moment of Silence
Several events surround this production, including:
Oct. 31-Nov. 8: Lobby Display
Throughout the run of the production a social space and video display will be installed in the Berlind Theatre upper lobby. The exhibit includes a timeline of Iranian events relevant to the play with historical photographs and a display of changes in clothing over time. The atmosphere will be enhanced with a Persian carpet, samovar-brewed tea with sugar cubes, and an audio backdrop of curated Iranian music and soundscapes. The installation was created in collaboration with the English Department’s “Global Plays and Politics” course, taught by Associate Professor of English Tamsen Wolff, and the project’s scholars and artists. This space will be used for various community events and conversations happening around the production and be open before and after show times to the community.
Nov 6 at 5-7:30 PM: Translation Workshop with Torange Yeghiazarian
East Pyne 235
Free & open to public
It has been said that translation utilizes an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. This applies even more to translating plays that are written to be performed live on stage. Translating plays is like building a bridge from one culture, one set of social conventions, one collection of historical and literary contexts, to another. In this workshop, designed for theater practitioners, translators, and anyone interested in cross-cultural understanding, we will review elements of translation in general, and explore unique challenges encountered when translating plays. Centering our work on three specific texts, participants will read and discuss the following plays in English and Persian: A Moment of Silence by Mohammad Yaghoubi, The Language of Wild Berries by Naghmeh Samini, and Leili & Majnun by Torange Yeghiazarian, adapted from the poetry of Nizami Ganjavi. This workshop is conducted in English; reading knowledge of Persian is not required. Co-sponsored and hosted by the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. Registration required. Register for the Translation Workshop
Nov. 8: Post-Matinee Community Gathering
Berlind Upper Lobby, McCarter Theatre Center
Free & open to public
Audience members are invited to join a post-show social gathering for Iranian and Iranian-American communities, and anyone who would like to find connections or hear stories from those communities, following the 2 p.m. performance.
Classroom Interactions
The artists and scholars of the project will also interact with Princeton students and local high school students. Director Nikoo Mamdoohi, set designer Omid Akbari and costume designer Afsaneh Aayani will share a design presentation for multiple Princeton classes and visit the “Theatrical Design Studio” course; dramaturg Q-Mars Haeri will be a guest in the “Global Plays and Politics” course, as will Akbari and Aayani, and Mamdoohi; and translator Torange Yeghiazarian will visit with the cast and production team of the production through the course, “Theater Rehearsal and Performance.” In addition Aayani and Akbari will visit students at Trenton Central High School and will present a theatrical design workshop for Trenton middle and high school students who are part of the Trenton Youth Theater program of Trenton Arts at Princeton. Mamdoohi and Haeri will present a performance and dramaturgy workshop for high school students in collaboration Trenton Central High School, Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), and the Lydia’s Scholars Program. Local high school students will also attend a post-matinee conversation.
Other Campus Events of Interest
Visit the newly opened Princeton University Art Museum (special 24-hour opening celebration October 31 at 5 p.m. through November 1 at 5 p.m.) where works from the collection are on view including:
- works by Iranian artists Bahar Behbahani and Hadieh Shafieare
- a late 9th century splashed ware bowl from the Abbasid Empire
- an early 13th century ewer with rooster spout
- a 13th century frieze tile with poetic inscription
- a late 13th century molded vessel of a seated man holding a water skin from the Ilkhanid dynasty
Please join us for the next Althea Ward Clark W’21 reading on November 11 at 6 p.m. at Labyrinth Books when we will welcome Pushcart Prize-winning Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar and award-winning poet Aracelis Girmay.
Land Acknowledgement
An estimated 10 million Native Americans lived in North America before the arrival of European colonizers. Many thousands lived in Lenapehoking, the vast homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, who were the first inhabitants of what is now called eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Princeton stands on part of the ancient homeland and traditional territory of the Lenape people. In 1756, the College of New Jersey erected Nassau Hall with no recorded consultation with the Lenni-Lenape peoples.
Treaties and forced relocation dispersed Lenape-Delaware to Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We acknowledge the violence of settler colonialism and pay respect to Lenape peoples past, present, and future and their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Lenape diaspora.
For more information about ways you can engage with and support the Indigenous community on campus please visit the website of Native American and Indigenous studies (NAI) at Princeton University, Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Acting Chair: Stacy Wolf
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Director of Program in Theater and Music Theater: Jane Cox
View a list of Program in Theater & Music Theater faculty & guest artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a list of LCA staff members.
The programs of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts are made possible through the generous support of many alumni and other donors. View a list of LCA Supporters
