The Report On The Judgment Day | Iran
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PREMIERE
Playwright - Nasim Ahmadpour
Director – Anna Bahow
Synopsis - The Report on the Judgment Day recounts a jury meeting at the 2020 Fajr Theater Festival in Tehran. Ahmadpour, herself a member of that jury and participant in the festival, had proposed that the meeting be held publicly as a performance during the festival. However, the jury meeting was canceled due to the majority of the nominated performance groups withdrawing their participation in protest against the then evolving political situation in Iran. Written for the four members of the jury, The Report on the Judgment Day is an attempt to perform that never-held jury session. In a sense, Ahmadpour’s text points to the potentials of what is intentionally left unrealised.
Nasim Ahmadpour
Nasim Ahmadpour, Nasim Ahmadpour is a theatre director, playwright, and screenwriter. Over her career, Ahmadpour has shown her productions both in Iran and internationally, achieving notable recognition at various international festivals and artistic forums.
She co-founded the Don Quixote theatre group in Tehran in 2003. Since then, she has written and/or directed eight plays for the group. In 2018, she was awarded Best Playwright at Tehran's TIFF. Ahmadpour has co-written scripts for five short films as well as feature films with director Shahram Mokri. "Fish & Cat"and "Careless Crime" were screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2014 and 2020, respectively, while "Invasion" was featured at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018. "The Careless Crime"screenplay was nominated at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival and won the Bisato d'Oro Award for Best Original Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival in 2020. Ahmadpour's recent screenplays include "A Fleeting Encounter", premiered at the Luxembourg Film Festival, and "Black Rabbit/ White Rabbit" directed by Shahram Mokri currently in Post-production.
Her play, "The Report on the 'Judgment Day'", was performed in a private underground hall in Tehran, and its text was presented at the Performa Biennale in New York in 2023. And "We Came to Dance" was premiered at Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2024 in Brussels.
Her latest work "England" by Tim Crouch for Albanian theater in North Macedonia, premiered on 25 December 2024.
Anna Bahow
Anna Bahow is a Chicago-based theatre director, producer and new play dramaturg. She is committed to the development of new work and a diversity of voices. Drawing on her design and visual arts background, she often expands the theatrical experience through design, multimedia, live music, and movement. She is an Artistic Associate with Silk Road Cultural Center which foregrounds Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern artists and an a founding Associate Artist with The International Voices Project which brings plays from around the world in translation to Chicago. Bahow has received an After Dark Award for her directing, and her productions have received Chicago JEFF Awards for New Work and Use of Multimedia. She served as a Michael Maggio Fellow at the Goodman Theatre, is recipient of a 3ARTS WAVE Grant, and several Illinois and City of Chicago Individual Artist Grants. As an educator, she has taught workshops at several universities and created programming that has served international audiences promoting global understanding and volunteerism. More about her work can be found at AnnaBahow.com