Support PILGRIMAGE
Pilgrimage is the first play by an Afghan woman to receive a professional production in the U.S.
DONATE NOW! Help make herstory by supporting this unique play!
Golden Thread Productions and Z Space present the world premiere of Pilgrimage by Humaira Ghilzai and Bridgette Dutta Portman. The play follows five Afghan and Muslim American women on an Umrah, a minor pilgrimage to Mecca. As they make the journey, long-buried secrets and simmering tensions surface, testing friendships, exposing family truths, and challenging what they believe about themselves, each other and their faith.
Pilgrimage is a bold depiction of Afghan and Muslim women that challenges the stereotypes about them that pervade U.S. culture. A moving and often funny family drama, Pilgrimage explores a familiar tension in many immigrant families — the gaps between tradition and lived experience, inherited faith and personal belief, what we hold onto and what we struggle to carry. The characters are vibrant, funny, and flawed — unapologetically human women who defy the clichés that dominate Western narratives about Muslim women. Help us make herstory with this rare and unique new play!
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ABOUT THE PLAY
PILGRIMAGE
by Humaira Ghilzai and Bridgette Dutta Portman
directed by Michelle Talgarow
Five women embark on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Noor, an Afghan American immigrant, must fulfill her sister’s last wish. Her daughter, Maryam, a tech CEO, seeks to evade her legal woes, while Noor’s nieces—estranged sisters Sosan and Nadia—must complete the pilgrimage to claim their inheritance. Meanwhile, Fatima, a Black Muslim convert and Nadia’s best friend, hopes to find her biological mother. Will this pilgrimage bring the five women closer, or will secrets, rivalries, and old wounds tear them apart?
Dates: October 24 - November 9, 2025
Venue: Z Space (450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA)
Tickets: zspace.org/pilgrimage
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Humaira Ghilzai is a writer, producer, cultural dramaturg, and dialect coach who has worked on Broadway, the West End, and with national and regional theaters. Credits include Generative Cultural Advisor and Dialect Coach for Matthew Spangler’s The Kite Runner (World Premiere, UK Tour, Broadway production, and U.S. tour) and Cultural Advisor for Ursula Rani Sarma’s A Thousand Splendid Suns (World Premiere at A.C.T San Francisco and West Coast tour). Additional theater credits include Blood and Gifts by Tony-winner J.T. Rogers (La Jolla Playhouse), Gabriel Jason Dean’s Heartland (rolling world premieres and off-Broadway), Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul (Seattle Rep, Northern Stage, Interact Theatre, Signature Theatre), Kevin Artigue’s The Most Dangerous Highway in the World (Golden Thread Productions), and Zealot (South Coast Repertory). Film & TV credits include: Little America, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Merry Friggin’ Christmas, and Away and Together.
Bridgette Dutta Portman is a playwright, teacher, and novelist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than two dozen of her plays have been produced locally, nationally, and internationally. She is president of the Pear Theatre board of directors and a member of the Pear Playwrights’ Guild, the PlayGround writers pool, and the Dramatists’ Guild. She is a recipient of the 2023 June Anne Baker Prize from PlayGround, and a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, the Theatre Bay Area TITAN award, the PlayPenn Conference, the Kentucky Women’s Theatre Conference Prize for Women Writers, the New Dramatists playwrights’ residency, and more.
ABOUT THE PRODUCING COMPANIES
Founded in 1996, Golden Thread Productions is the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East. We produce passionate and provocative plays from or about the Middle East that celebrate the multiplicity of its perspectives and identities. We are a developmental catalyst and vibrant artistic home to artists at various stages of their career. We bring the Middle East to the American stage, creating treasured cultural experiences for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
Z Space empowers artistic risk, collaboration, and camaraderie amongst artists, audience, and community in the service of creating, developing, and presenting new work. Operating out of an old can factory in the Mission District of San Francisco, Z Space now activates two venues, an 85-seat intimate theater and a 236-seat flexible performance space, with a warehouse aesthetic and an adventurous edge. Eschewing traditional theater models with fixed seasons and a singular artistic vision, Z Space strives to embrace a multitude of artistic voices through a variety of programs and partnerships.