When LA-based, Syrian-Armenian actor and writer Sona Tatoyan located her great-great-grandfather’s handmade Karagöz shadow puppets hidden inside a trunk in the attic of their abandoned family home in Aleppo, Syria, she became inspired to create what would become the multi-media performance, Azad, which means “free” in Armenian.
A “kaleidoscopic story within a story” (Hakawati), Azad is a work-in-progress theatrical experience that brings together ancient Karagöz shadow puppets, indigenous Middle Eastern folk music, oral storytelling, video projection, and movement. Tatoyan weaves together diverse stories such as 1001 Nights and the contemporary tale of the Turkish human rights activist Osman Kavala, amidst the backdrop of the trauma of the Armenian genocide. The immersive theater piece was being developed during a residency at ArtLab with collaborators Jared Mezzocchi, director and projectionist, and Ayhan Hulagu, Karagöz shadow-puppeteer.
Read a review of the show in The Armenian Weekly:
Countering Destruction with Creation: How Azad, a multimedia performance, changed my life.
About the performers
Sona Tatoyan is a first generation Syrian-Armenian-American actor/writer/producer with bases in Aleppo, Syria; Berlin, Germany; LA, California and Yerevan, Armenia. As an actress, stage credits include world premieres at Yale Repertory Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, The American Conservatory Theatre, and others. She starred in The Journey, the first American independent film shot in Armenia (winner, Audience Award Milan Film Festival, 2002). As a writer, her first feature film script, The First Full Moon, was a 2011 Sundance/RAWI Screenwriters Lab participant and 2012 Dubai Film Connection/Festival Project. Sona is the founder of Disruptive Narrative, a social justice/social enterprise production company, and of Hakawati, a non-profit storytelling vehicle focusing on elevating the voices of frontline and marginalized communities.
Jared Mezzocchi is a theater artist working most notably as a director and multimedia designer. He is a two-time Obie Award winner, a two-time MacDowell Artist Fellow, and a 2012 Princess Grace Award winner. In 2016, he received Obie, Lucille Lortel, and Henry Hewes Awards for his work in Qui Nguyen’s “Vietgone” at the Manhattan Theatre club. Jared is an Associate Professor at The University of Maryland, where he teaches in the MFA Design program for the projection and multimedia track, and serves as Producing Artistic Director of Andy’s Summer Playhouse, an innovative children’s theater in New Hampshire producing original work by professional artists from across the country.
Ayhan Hulagu is a Kurdish actor and Karagöz puppeteer currently based in the US. He founded the theater group Hayal Perdesi in Turkey and later launched the PAU Theatre Festival. He was a member of Sahika Tekand Studio Players in Istanbul. Ayhan was granted an “extraordinary ability artist” visa to the US for bringing the Karagöz art form to the United States and founding Karagöz Theater Company in 2017. He has performed at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, National Puppet Festival, Neopolis International Theater Festival, and La MaMa Puppet S., to name a few. Ayhan made history as the first artist to introduce Karagöz – in its nearly 700 years history – to Broadway. He is a board member of Puppeteers of America.
This free, public performance is part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).
