Support the world premiere of AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf)

Golden Thread Productions and Hakawati NGO bring a tantalizing intergenerational Armenian odyssey from Aleppo to the Bay Area!

A good story, well told, has the power to move, inspire, challenge and even transform us. In times of war, displacement, and erasure especially, we need stories that can help us cope. Syrian-Armenian-American theatre and film artist Sona Tatoyan’s multimedia play, AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf), is one of those potent, spellbinding stories.

Imagine 120-year-old shadow puppets, indigenous Middle Eastern folk music, oral storytelling, and contemporary video projection all in one breathtaking production!! AZAD is an epic story, featuring high-caliber artists and masters of craft, many of whom identify as immigrants and refugees. This innovative performance takes us on an alchemizing journey of healing and reclamation, guided by a collection of 180 Karagöz shadow puppets once used by Sona’s great-great grandfather Abkar Knadjian in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Abkar, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, was forced to leave his home, but managed to salvage both his family and his art.

“I never knew Abkar physically,” Sona says, “but through his puppets I was able to reframe my legacy and my understanding of the lands of my roots–as a place of intertwined magic and story, wisdom and healing, alongside layers of trauma.”

Like Sona’s family, these puppets have endured exile and destruction for generations. Now, they serve as vessels for stories that transcend trauma, sharing tales of humor, wisdom, and resilience. Coinciding with the annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, AZAD is more than a performance, it is a call to remember, reclaim, and reimagine history.

Golden Thread Productions presents
a co-production with Hakawati NGO
World Premiere

AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf) by Sona Tatoyan in collaboration with Jared Mezzocchi
directed by Jared Mezzocchi
featuring Sona Tatoyan, a tribe of Karagöz Puppets, and oud player Ara Dinkjian

April 11, 2025 - May 3, 2025
Potrero Stage - 1695 18th Street, San Francisco, CA

Syrian-Armenian-American theatre and film artist Sona Tatoyan, stranded in her family’s abandoned Aleppo home during the Syrian war, discovers her great-great-grandfather’s handmade Karagöz shadow puppets, salvaged from the Armenian Genocide. Guided by the storyteller Scherazad, the puppets unveil bawdy, hilarious, and haunting tales that transport Sona through an intergenerational, psychedelic journey, alchemizing a radiant truth: stories, when reimagined, possess the power to transmute trauma to healing.

More Information and Tickets