Golden Thread Productions Reveals 2025 Season of Solidarity

 Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East, has announced its 2025 Season titled “Threads of Solidarity.” Building on the success of its groundbreaking 2024 Season for Palestine, the five-project season aims to illuminate the interconnectedness of our struggles, amplifying Palestinian, Armenian, Syrian, Afghan, and Turkish voices. Through a diverse collection of personal and historical narratives, Golden Thread’s 2025 Season honors the strength of those who have endured, who are still fighting, and the voices that refuse to be silenced. Featuring bold world-premiere works by women-identifying artists and fostering both local and national collaborations, the 2025 Season invites the Bay Area community to come together in solidarity in a way that only theater can. 

Executive Artistic Director Sahar Assaf asks: "In the face of brutal genocide, war, and rise of fascism, what can we do as individuals, as artists, as citizens of this world? Though all our efforts might seem futile, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into despair. It is simply not an option when our communities, even while under the threat of bombs, are showing such powerful resilience. So, what do we do? We continue to rebuild our lives, our homes, our humanity, one story at a time." 

Managing Director Wynne Chan, for whom the 2025 Season will be her first, adds: “We created our 2025 Season line-up in collaboration with local and national partners that share our artistic values. It is an essential time for us to stand together and speak the truth through art, and our collaborations and co-productions this year are a true testament of the solidarity we are advocating for.”

Golden Thread’s 2025 Mainstage Season launches with the world premiere of innovative  multimedia play AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf). Written by Syrian-Armenian American theatre and film artist Sona Tatoyan in collaboration with two-time Obie Award-winning artist Jared Mezzocchi and directed by Mezzocchi, the immersive theatrical experience features Tatoyan, a tribe of Karagöz Puppets, and oud player Ara Dinkjian. A co-production with Hakawati NGO, AZAD centers around Tatoyan who discovers her great-great-grandfather’s handmade Karagöz shadow puppets while stranded in her family’s abandoned Aleppo home during the Syrian war. Salvaged from the Armenian Genocide and guided by the storyteller Scherazad, the puppets unveil bawdy, hilarious, and haunting tales that transport Sona through an intergenerational, psychedelic journey, alchemizing a radiant truth: stories, when reimagined, possess the power to transmute trauma to healing. Golden Thread and Hakawati would like to thank producers Bill Pullman and Noubar and Anna Afeyan for their ongoing support and championing of this project. AZAD plays April 11–May 3, 2025 at Potrero Stage (1695 18th Street, San Francisco). Tickets (starting at $20) are now on sale at goldenthread.org.

The summer brings into focus Golden Thread’s ongoing commitment to Palestinian artists and stories with The Return, produced in partnership with Art2Action, Inc. Written by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast and directed by Sahar Assaf, this play was an audience favorite from 2024’s New Threads Staged Reading Series. In The Return, two people meet in an auto-body shop in the mid-sized city Herzliya. They might or might not have known each other in the past. One of them is Palestinian, one of them is Israeli Jewish, and by the end of the play, both of their lives will be changed forever by the realities that surround them. DC Theater Arts called The Return “a taut and provocative two-character play, which vividly evokes the political tension between the Israeli state and its Palestinian citizens.” Dates and venue will be announced soon.

The 2025 Season culminates in the world premiere of Pilgrimage by celebrated Afghan-American artist Humaira Ghilzai and Bridgette Dutta Portman, presented in a co-production with Z Space. Developed as part of New Threads 2022, Pilgrimage focuses on five women as they embark on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Noor, an Afghan American immigrant, must fulfill her sister’s last wish. Her daughter, Maryam, a tech CEO, seeks to evade her legal woes, while Noor’s nieces—estranged sisters Sosan and Nadia—must complete the pilgrimage to claim their inheritance. Meanwhile, Fatima, a Black Muslim convert and Nadia’s Best Friend, hopes to find her biological mother. Will this pilgrimage bring the five women closer, or will secrets, rivalries, and old wounds tear them apart? Pilgrimage plays October 25–November 10, 2025 at Z Space’s Steindler Stage (450 Florida Street, San Francisco). Tickets (starting at $20) are now on sale at goldenthread.org.

Along with the mainstage offerings, Golden Thread’s 2025 Season includes What Do the Women Say?: Healing and Resilience. Golden Thread’s beloved annual celebration of International Women’s Day will be presented March 8, 2025 at 11am PST. The presentation will be online to serve our global community, and features a guided meditation and Q&A session led by Ashira Darwish, the Palestinian journalist, therapist, and activist featured in the powerful film Where Olive Trees Weep, which will be available for on-demand viewing from February 22-March 8, 2025. The film offers a searing exploration of the struggles and resilience of Palestinian people under Israeli occupation and delves into themes of loss, trauma, and the quest for justice. Film access and event attendance is free and now available through RSVP at goldenthread.org.

Rounding out the 2025 Season offerings is a New Threads workshop production of ORIENTAL, or 1001 Ways to Tie Yourself in Knots, a timely comedy written by Artist-in-Residence Evren Odcikin and featuring dramaturgy by Golden Thread founder Torange Yeghiazarian. In ORIENTAL, Kaan has been commissioned to make an adaptation of A Thousand and One Nights from a Very Important Theater Company, and asked to bring his immigrant, Muslim, queer perspective to it. Unfortunately, he is not sure what all that means. As his characters revolt and refuse to tell the stories that he requires of them, can Kaan face his demons, change the minds and hearts of his audience, and save all the women of the kingdom in the process? ORIENTAL is an absurdist look at the hilarious knots SWANA creatives must tie themselves in to tell their stories and make a career in the American theatre. The staged readings of ORIENTAL will be presented on June 7–8, 2025 at Potrero Stage (1695 18th Street, San Francisco). Tickets ($20) are now available at goldenthread.org.

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