Casting is announced today for Birmingham Rep’s new production of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Ursula Rani Sarma’s play based on Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling spiritual sequel to The Kite Runner. It opens at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on Friday 11 April and runs until Saturday 3 May 2025.
Roxana Silbert, who directed the critically acclaimed European Premiere of the play at The Rep in May 2019, and returns to helm this new production said:
“I’m really delighted to be returning to the brilliant Birmingham Rep stage, which I love, and I’m honoured to be revisiting this beautiful adaptation of A Thousand Splendid Suns, one of the final plays I directed at The Rep before I ended my tenure as Artistic Director in 2019. This is a new production in response to the evolving challenges women face in Afghanistan – and sadly even more urgent and necessary today than it was 6 years ago”.
The cast for this new production is: David Ahmad (Babi, Mullah Faizullah Zaman and Militiaman), Rina Fatania (Mariam), Kerena Jagpal (Laila), Jonas Khan (Rasheed), Jonny Khan (Tariq, Wakil and Driver), Noah Manzoor (Zalmai and Wakil’s Wife), Peyvand Sadeghian (Nana, Fariba and Doctor), Tahir Shah (Jalis, Abdul Sharif, Interrogator and Militia Man) and Humera Syed (Young Mariam, Asia and Nurse).
Joining Roxana on the creative team are: Set and Costume Designer Simon Kenny, Lighting Designer Matt Haskins, Sound Designer Clive Meldrum, Composer Elaha Soroor, Movement Director Kuldip Singh Barmi, Fight Director Rachid Sabitri, Fight Director Jessica Hrabowsky, Casting Director Helena Palmer and the Assistant Director is Massi Safa.
Khaled Hosseini’s international best-selling novel is the powerful story of three generations of women discovering strength in unity and finding hope in the unlikeliest of places. Set in 1992 in an Afghanistan ravaged by war, an orphaned Laila is left alone in an increasingly threatening world. Her older neighbour Rasheed is quick to open his home and takes Laila as his second wife.
Rasheed’s first wife Mariam has no choice but to accept her younger, and now pregnant, rival. As the Taliban take over, life for all of them becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, and the two women find themselves unlikely allies. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, love grows and sustains the human spirit even during the hardest of times.
Playwright Ursula Rani Sarma said:
“This play is about the immense strength and endurance of women and how they can survive tremendous suffering to keep those they love alive. It is also about how even in the darkest of times and places, love can grow and sustain the human spirit beyond all pain and hard-ship. It’s about friendship and loyalty, courage and selflessness, grief and violence. What the play has to say about love, endurance, and survival is very much worth listening to for a contemporary audience. There is beauty and strength at the heart of A Thousand Splendid Suns, and I feel so proud to be part of its evolution from novel to stage.’
Ursula Rani Sarma is an award-winning scriptwriter for stage and screen of Irish Indian descent. Her credits include feature film In The Shadows (Sleeper/ Affine Films / True Brit), Bodkin (Netflix/Higher Ground/Wiip), Smother (Treasure/BBC Studios/ RTE), Delicious (Sky One/Bandit), and Red Rock (Element/TV3) amongst others
Ursula is currently Writing and Exec Producing The Split Up a series for television with Sister Pictures for the BBC as well as developing projects forBad Wolf/ Sky, George Clooney’s Smokehouse and Gillian Anderson’s Fiddlehead / Netflix amongst others.
Ursula has written numerous award-winning plays which have been produced around the world. They include Yerma (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Dark Things (Traverse Theatre), Birdsong (The Abbey Theatre), Joanne (Clean Break) and The Magic Tree (Everyman Theatre) amongst many others. Her work is published by Oberon, Faber and Faber, Nick Hern and Penguin Random House. She is currently writing plays for The National Theatre, The Abbey Theatre and EON Productions.
Ursula was the Programme Leader of the MA in Scriptwriting at Bath Spa University for ten years until 2019. Ursula lives in the West of Ireland.
Khaled Hosseini is one of the most widely read and beloved novelists in the world, with over 38 million copies of his books sold in more than seventy countries. The Kite Runner was a major film and was a Book of the Decade, chosen by The Times, Daily Telegraph and Guardian. A Thousand Splendid Suns was the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year in 2008. Hosseini is currently a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee Agency and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and lives in northern California.
