English
Opening Night: January 23, 2025
Theater: American Airlines
Website: www.roundabouttheatre.org
The comedy unfolds in an Iranian classroom where adult English learners practice for their proficiency exam. As they leapfrog through a linguistic playground, their wildly different dreams, frustrations, and secrets come to light. Can they overcome the limits of language to discover what they really want to say?
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January 23, 2025
Even more so than when it debuted Off Broadway in 2022, and won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2023, it strikes me as a work of uncommon discipline despite its big and occasionally easy laughs.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 23, 2025
Toossi, an Iranian American playwright, understands this intimately and delves into the complexities of forging identity across languages in her warm, perceptive new play.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 23, 2025
The entire original cast has journeyed with the production to Broadway, and of their performances are sharper and more resonant than ever before under the sensitive and steady direction of Knud Adams.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 23, 2025
The cast, without exception, plays every twist, turn, beat and emotion beautifully. If you had to be in a classroom struggling with something that seems always to remain beyond your grasp, you’d be lucky to share space with folks like these. English is a wonder.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 23, 2025
“English” very rightfully won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2023, and it’s hands down a masterpiece of theater. Undeniably one of the best plays of the decade, it is both thought-provoking and deeply affecting.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 23, 2025
Adams’s staging for Roundabout Theatre Company, beautifully scaled up from its co-production with Atlantic Theater Company, has a graceful and haunted quality.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 23, 2025
Now, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it has migrated to Broadway under the sponsorship of the Roundabout, with its identity entirely intact. Director Knud Adams and his original cast of five re-create the magic of the original production without a stammer, stumble or waver.
READ THE REVIEWRoma
Torre
January 23, 2025
Playwright Sanaz Toossi won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for English, a keenly understated work that speaks volumes about the immense impact language has on our culture and identity.
READ THE REVIEWJonathan
Mandell
January 23, 2025
There remains some value in a quiet, contemplative play, even one with some loose threads. “English” goes inward, and there can be beauty in that.
READ THE REVIEWAllison
Considine
January 23, 2025
Under the direction of Knud Adams, the characters seamlessly transition between fast-paced and slower, more deliberate dialogue. These shifts are a beautiful theatrical device that mirrors the characters’ transition from their native Farsi to navigating a new language — while adhering to the “English Only” rule to benefit the audience.
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