Master Class: Theatrical Play, Staging Language and Poetry

To sign up for the workshop, register your attendance HERE by 12:00 p.m. on November 11, 2025.

This event is free and open to the public. This program is open. all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Donations to The Iris Lab or to MENA Theater Makers Alliance https://www.menatheatre.org/ are encouraged.

Because we are currently in a COVID surge, we encourage masking to protect yourself and others at events.

Parking Information: DARC (Digital Arts Research Center) building on Google maps 407 McHenry RoadSanta Cruz, CA, 95064 Park in parking lot 126 - permit required and available via PARK MOBILE app

This residency is possible because of generous support from: The Arts Research Institute and Department of Performance, Play & Design.

Website: https://torangeyeghiazarian.com/

Torange Yeghiazarian is a playwright, director, and translator. Torange’s writing is featured in “New Iranian Plays,” “Middle Eastern American Theatre,” “Performing Iran,” “Salaam. Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern-American Drama,” and “Casting a Movement,” among others. She has translated works by leading contemporary Iranian playwrights including, Naghmeh Samini, Mohammad Yaghoubi, and Reza Soroor; and adapted to the stage a short story by Iran’s modernist master, Sadegh Hedayat, poems by leading feminist poet, Simin Behbehani, and classical romance poetry by Nizami (Layla & Majnun) published on Gleeditions.com. Torange has directed, devised, and collaborated on numerous plays including original short plays for young audiences. Her articles have been published in The Drama Review, American Theatre Magazine, AmerAsia Journal, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, and the Cambridge World Encyclopedia of Stage Actors. Torange is the Founding Artistic Director Emeritus of Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East. She is a founding member of Middle Eastern North African Theatre Makers Alliance, and serves on the board of Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists. Torange has been recognized by Theatre Bay Area and is one of Theatre Communication Group’s Legacy Leaders of Color. She was honored by the Cairo International Theatre Festival and the Symposium on Equity in the Entertainment Industry at Stanford University. Born in Iran and of Armenian heritage, Torange has a Masters in Theater from San Francisco State University and currently works as a freelance artist, writer, and consultant.

Website: https://odcikin.com/

EVREN ODCIKIN (he/him) is a Turkish-American director, writer, and arts leader with a commitment to championing historically-excluded stories and voices in the American theater, and the proud 2024-25 Artist in Residence at Golden Thread Productions. His work is heart centered, globally minded, politically engaged, and centers joy as resistance. Recent directing credits: Macbeth and Mona Mansour’s unseen (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), christopher oscar pena’s Our Orange Sky (Profile Theatre), Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul (Northern Stage), Amir Nizar Zuabi’s This is Who I Am (Woolly Mammoth, PlayCo, ART, Guthrie, and OSF), as well as work at Berkeley Rep, Geva, South Coast Rep, Kennedy Center, the Lark, Interact Theatre Company, Cleveland Public Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, and Magic Theatre, amongst many others. In 2023, he served as the Interim Artistic Director at OSF, where he had been the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming since 2019. Evren is a founder of Maia Directors, and serves on the Boards of Middle Eastern North African Theater Makers Alliance and Playwrights Foundation. His productions have been acknowledged by Critic’s picks and Best of the Year lists from SF Chronicle, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, WBUR, KQED, Bay Area Reporter, and SF Bay Times. Upcoming work includes Nia Akilah Robinson’s The Great Privation (How to flip five cents into a dollar) at Soho Rep, Sanaz Toossi's English at the Alley Theatre, and workshops of Lauren Gunderson's Muse of Fire at Marin Shakes and his new work, Oriental: 1001 Ways to Tie Yourself in Knots at Golden Thread.

Lisa Marie Rollins (Assistant Professor of Playwriting & Black Drama, Department of Performance, Play and Design at UCSC) is a writer, director, new work developer and cultural visionary. She is a Member of Dramatist Guild and Stage Directors & Choreographers. She has been a writing resident with Djerassi, Hedgebrook, Joshua Tree Highlands Residency, CALLALOO London, VONA and more. She received a Wallace Gerbode Playwright Award for a commission with Crowded Fire Theater for her new play KARA. She was honored with a “Bay Brilliant” artist award from San Francisco’s KQED, has been a Bay Area Rainin Arts Fellowship nominee and is the recipient of multiple grants for her playwriting and theater making work. Selected directing & dramaturg credits include Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, New York Stage and Film, Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Arizona Theater Company, Hedgebrook Women’s Play Festival, Crowded Fire Theater, American Conservatory Theatre SF, Magic Theatre, new work by Lauren Gunderson, Geetha Reddy, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm (CLIPPED- FX), and creative collaboration with comedic artist W. Kamau Bell (CNN). She has been a Literary Associate for Intiman Theater in Seattle, WA, and reads for juries & play selection panels around the country. She leads THE IRIS LAB, a new creative incubator, residency & research space for global majority & equity minded theater makers located right here at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

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