Set Designer

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize! This heartfelt, humorous play follows five strangers in an Iranian TOEFL class as they navigate language, identity, and unexpected friendships. Each brings a personal reason for learning English, discovering along the way what is lost—and found—in translation. No matter how difficult the course gets, the human spirit shines through.

EPSG:4326

English

Alley Theatre

Rock and roll was invented by corporations to sell cars and sex to teenagers. Indie rock was invented by teenagers who weren’t into cars or sex. Pop music is a CIA plot, like MK Ultra and Abstract Expressionism. Gender is a pyramid scheme; religion is a performance. Texas is both a gender and a religion.

Katy Perry Candy Darling Mary Magdalene

MATCH - Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston

The earth is barren. The sea stands still. There is less and less of anything here. In the shelter, blind despot Hamm (who can’t stand up) lords over his weary attendant Clov (who can’t sit down), each dependent on the other. Hamm’s legless parents Nagg and Nell slowly expire in adjacent trash bins, confined there by their son. Day after punishing day, Hamm steers Clov through a series of senseless, circular routines in impotent defiance of a predetermined outcome. With each reminder of the death that awaits him outside, Clov inches nearer to the exit.

Endgame

The Big Swim, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in partnership with Asia Society Texas Center , is a contemporary fable that fuses diverse influences into a single, compelling whole. Composer Meilina Tsui and librettist Melisa Tien have crafted a witty, heartwarming one-act opera that intentionally crosses boundaries between the traditional and modern, Eastern and Western, and classical and non-classical. In a new retelling of the race, the 12 animals learn that fierce competition is not as crucial as caring for and supporting one another, side by side.

The Big Swim

Asia Society Texas Center

Afsaneh Aayani’s latest experimental dance-theatre piece was loosely inspired by two of friends: one from Tel Aviv, the other from her native Tehran who will never be free to express or indulge the deep, true love between them. Featuring an original soundscape by longtime collaborator Hessam Dianpour, Romeos and Juliets also contains echoes of the Persian love story Layla and Majnun sharing striking similarities with and surely influencing Shakespeare’s tragedy. Across human history, we have been told who and how it is okay to love, so there can’t be a single Romeo or Juliet, Layla or Majnun: they are legion.

Set Designer

Afsaneh Aayani

Events

Upcoming events

3 - 25 Apr, 2026

Romeos And Juliets · The Catastrophic Theatre

Past events

5 - 8 Mar, 2026

English · Alley Theatre

Feb 20 - Mar 7, 2026

Katy Perry Candy Darling Mary Magdalene · The Catastrophic Theatre

About

Afsaneh Aayani hasn't added a bio