Mohammad Yaghoubi is an award-winning playwright, director, screenwriter and theatre instructor. He was born and raised in Iran and moved to Canada in 2015. He co-founded NOWADAYS THEATRE company in Toronto in 2016.
Drama
Earworm
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2025.
forthcoming Nov. 2025
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Have you ever had a voice lodged in your memory that won’t go away? Clawing at your skin, bones, and nerves until it’s all you can think about? For Homa, an Iranian refugee living in Canada with her son Pendar, this is her daily torment. Haunted by the trauma of torture under the oppressive Islamic regime, Homa channels her pain into activism as an outspoken podcaster, fiercely condemning the human-rights violations in Iran. But her freedom is tested when she discovers that the father of Pendar’s new girlfriend is a devout Islamist and requests she wear a hijab in his presence. As the voices in her mind grow louder, Homa fears the nightmares from her past have followed her right to her doorstep.
In Earworm, provocateur Mohammad Yaghoubi delivers a brilliant thriller that interrogates the fragile promises of political asylum and resonates not just with Iranian immigrants, but with all who have fled persecution in their homeland only to encounter their oppressors once again in their new country. Created in solidarity with the 2022 international Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrations that originated in Iran, this confrontational, clever, and suspenseful drama burrows deep under your skin and lingers long after its shocking conclusion.
Drama
Winter of 88
Translated by Nazanin Malekan & Mohammad Yaghoubi.
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2023.
e-book (Access restricted to members of the university community)
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
A new apartment should be a warm and welcoming signal to a fresh chapter of life. It shouldn’t be where a family waits in the dark, surrounded by unpacked boxes, as missiles rain down around them.
Already eight years into the Iran–Iraq war, Nasrin and her two adult children—daughter Nahid and son Mahyar—just want to feel safe and settled. Tensions are already high, from bickering over who gets what room and what goes where to why Nahid’s husband left her. Mahyar leaves the apartment in a heated moment, leaving Nasrin wracked with fear. As the missiles start to strike and the power goes out, Nahid tries to hold everything together. From that moment on, it’s about survival.
This heart-wrenching meta-autobiographical play, presented in both English and Farsi, is a window into days when death was practically a neighbour in war-torn Tehran. It’s a dedication to those who are left behind with the trauma of war and survivors’ guilt. Author Mohammad Yaghoubi survived it, so he had to write about it.
Links
Publisher Playwrights Canada Press