Here’s a hypothetical question – what if the words you need to communicate who you are come from a language that is not your own? That is the premise of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning play English by Sanaz Toossi, the first offering of the sixth season of CAST’s Staged Readings, Re-Orient: Narratives From Asian Voices. Set in Karaj, Iran in 2008, it tells the story of four adult students taking an English language class. What unfolds is an articulate discourse on how language becomes a crux between holding on to your own identity while also finding your place in the world at large.

As the reading begins, we meet its motley crew of characters. Goli (Chaye Mogg) is an eager 18-year-old with big dreams. Elham (Justine Peña) is a medical student hoping to move overseas, while Omid (Jordan Andrews) is preparing for a green card interview. Roya (Mayen Bustamante-Cadd) is a mother trying to assimilate into her son’s new life in Canada. Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante plays Marjan, their English teacher.

Sarah Facuri shows a sensitivity to the human condition as a director by allowing her actors to hold space for all the frustration, doubt, regret, hope, and joy that the characters felt. Even the shift in tonality, clarity, and accent as they volleyed between translated Farsi to broken English amplifies the myriad of emotions.

As beautiful as Toossi’s writing of English was, props must go to the cast who had to deliver it. And that they did, in spades. Mogg matches Goli’s enthusiasm and energy at every turn, giving the reading much-needed levity. Bustamante-Cadd plays Roya, a mother waiting to reunite with her son, with a mix of sadness and hope as she struggles with acceptance and change. On the other hand, this is Andrews' first foray into straight plays, which, after this, he should do more of. His take on Omid is charming and thoughtful, but you sense the façade built around that persona.

That said, the heart of this staged reading had to Justine Peña and Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante, as women torn between two worlds, defined by the language she speaks, albeit from two different perspectives. One who returns to her homeland, and one hoping to leave. As Elham, Peña is barely recognizable, fully immersing herself into her character, who grapples with her sense of identity. As Marjan, Bradshaw-Volante wears her character’s heart on her sleeve, but shows restraint without letting a single emotion or moment go to waste.

CAST Artistic Director Nelsito Gomez explains that the choice to feature Asian playwrights for this season stems from a personal challenge to read more material from the region, discovering a wealth of stories he couldn’t wait to tell. Since its launch in 2018, only themes and cast are announced ahead, while actual play titles are revealed just as the show begins, “so the audience can fully immerse themselves into the material with no preconceptions.”

Perhaps the takeaway from English is how closely intertwined our identity is with the language we use to communicate it.  Especially when we are forced to do so in a tongue that is foreign to our own. So much lost in translation, and for the characters central to this story, there is a cost to it. That CAST presented this narrative stripped down as a staged reading places its message front and center. It forces the audience to focus on the individual journeys in learning to speak ‘English only.’ To attempt to understand each of their motivations vis-à-vis how they perceive identity. It’s a timely narrative, a very human one, that resonates with so many today. With English as CAST’s opening salvo for Re-Orient: Narratives From Asian Voices, the 2026 theater season is off to a brilliant start.