By Dr. Marjan Moosavi

1921: The Pahlavi monarchy comes to power and pursues an ambitious modernization campaign.

1951: Nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq nationalizes the British-owned oil industry.

1953: Mosaddeq is overthrown by a CIA/MI6–aided coup.

1971: Pahlavi organizes grand international festivals and festivities, including a decade-long series of avant-garde theatre and music festivals in Shiraz.

1978–1979: The Iranian Revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, overthrows the Pahlavi monarchy and proclaims the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a result of the project of Islamization, the Islamic dress code and veil requirements for actresses become compulsory.

1979–1981: The revolutionary groups occupy the American embassy in Tehran. They take 52 American diplomats hostage for 14 months. 

1980: The United States cuts all formal diplomatic relations, which continues to this day. 

1980–1988: Iraq invades Iran. This war of attrition ends eight years later, but its cultural and ideological legacy remains and leads to the development of the Sacred Defense theatrical repertoire.

Ali Khamenei.

1989: The new supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is appointed. The post-war construction era starts.

1995: The United States places oil and trade sanctions on Iran. The economic sanctions get renewed repeatedly by the U.S. and U.N. over the next two decades.

1997: The reformist era starts with Mohammad Khatami’s presidency. Democratic discourses and practices about civil rights, freedom of expression, and women’s rights grow. The best era of press freedom in Iran begins, but it ends with the vast closure of the press in spring 2000.

1999: Pro-democracy protests by university students last for six days. Recurrent arrests of students, activists, journalists, and intellectuals continue.

2000: The decade marks the beginning of a new era of water crisis and drought in Iran.

2003: Shirin Ebadi receives the Nobel Peace Prize for her pioneering efforts for democracy and the rights of children, women, and refugees. 

2008: The Conservative Alliance of hardliner president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wins the Iranian legislative election as most reformist candidates are disqualified from running.

2008: The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declares 

2008 the International Year of Languages.

The events of English are set in 2008.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

2009: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wins re-election in June, defeating reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi. A series of protests known as the Green Movement starts and becomes a major event in Iran’s modern political history. The state responds with a brutal crackdown on protestors. Among the protestors is Neda Agha-Soltan, a university student, who is shot by a Basij militiaman. Her death sparks a new cycle of protests. The video footage of her death goes viral in global media.

2013: Reformist-backed cleric Hassan Rouhani wins the presidential election. Under his presidency, Iran begins Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiations with international council P5+1 over its nuclear program.

2017: Women begin a series of anti-hijab protests, rallying against compulsory hijab by unveiling in public and sharing their selfies on social media.

Nasrin Sotoudeh.

2019: A fuel price hike prompts mass protests nationwide. Over 100 people are reported dead in the police crackdown. Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iran’s most prominent human rights lawyer—who represented a woman who was arrested for peacefully protesting the compulsory hijab—is sentenced to 38 years in prison.

2021: The hardliner cleric Ebrahim Raisi is elected to the presidency. The new Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance issues a new program for revamping rubrics to further Islamize the arts. The government’s censorial intervention in art and culture escalates.

2022: Mahsa Jina Amini’s suspicious death, while in custody by Tehran morality police, leads to a nationwide cycle of protests, led by women and students with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom.” Thousands of protestors are arrested. 

2023: The jailed human rights activist Narges Mohammadi receives the Nobel Peace Prize for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” 

2023: An agreement between Iran and the United States leads to a prisoner swap and the release of Iran’s $6 billion frozen in South Korea.

2023: The Women, Life, Freedom movement continues to evolve. In December, the European Parliament awards Mahsa Jina Amini and the movement the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

The cast and crew of English stand in solidarity  with, and support of, the Woman, Life, Freedom  movement in Iran, and in opposition to the oppressive  mandatory hijab laws.

Marjan Moosavi is an educator, researcher, digital curator, and dramaturg from Iran and Canada, based in  Washington DC. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto. She  is a faculty member at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies and an affiliate faculty member at the School  of Theatre, Dance, and Performance at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interest is in  world theatre and decolonization, focusing on the theatre and dramaturgy of MENA and its diasporas.