On this episode of The Subtext, we present something a little different. A typical episode of this podcast features a one-on-one conversation between Brian and another playwright. This month, however, Brian was inspired to dig deeper into the story of a single playwright and her project by speaking with several people, combining multiple interviews conducted over the period of a year, each focused on actor and writer Heather Raffo and her new project, Tomorrow Will Be Sunday, a new play exploring the intersection between currencies and migration that had a reading last year at Minneapolis’s Playwrights Center and remains in development. 

Originally from Michigan, Heather has a father from Iraq and an American mother. She has taught and performed at dozens of universities and arts centers both in the U.S. and internationally, engaging students about the politics and arts of Iraq and about her own experience as an Iraqi American playwright and actress. She is best known as the solo performer and writer of the Off-Broadway hit 9 Parts of Desire, which details the lives of nine Iraqi women and has been all over the world. Her Doll’s House-inspired play Noura had major productions in 2018 and 2019, including at the Guthrie Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Staff from the Playwrights Center first mentioned this project to Brian in the fall of 2020, and that’s when his reporting started. His sources include Georgetown theatre professor Maya Roth, Playwrights Center associate artistic director Hayley Finn, former BBC correspondent Matthew Wells, Columbia theatre student Michael Karadsheh, and Raffo herself.

This episode can also be found here.

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