AZAD (the rabbit and the wolf)

Hakawati

Hakawati is a social justice vehicle working with communities that exist on the frontlines of suffering to catalyze radical change. Hakawati was founded by Syrian-Armenian-American actress/writer/producer Sona Tatoyan. With a passion for storytelling, human rights and transformation, Hakawati is driven to use the art of storytelling to heal. As a meeting place to witness trauma and support its alchemy towards inspiration and creativity, Hakawati aspires to empower the seemingly disempowered: to help un-silence the silenced and amplify the compassionate humanity of all of us.

We provide an empowering platform that facilitates the creative talent of refugees and marginalized people through development labs in film, theater, and other storytelling modalities, along with creating indigenous theater and film productions. Hakawati works with, and employs people from within these local communities whenever possible – to tell stories by people from the places and spaces where the story originates. We work to preserve cultures under threat, mentor artists in frontline communities, and support refugee storytelling within displaced communities.

Sona Tatoyan

Sona Tatoyan is a first generation Syrian-Armenian-American actor/writer/producer and founder of Hakawati, a non-profit storytelling vehicle focusing on elevating the voices of frontline and marginalized communities.

As 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 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.

As a writer and actress, Ms. Tatoyan created the storytelling piece Azad, performing most recently at the University of Michigan Keene Theater, Clark University and at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. She created the multimedia play Azad (the rabbit and the wolf) with two time Obie Award winning director/multimedia designer Jared Mezzocchi, and producer Bill Pullman. Development residencies: the Vineyard theater in NYC, inaugural University of Connecticut Global Affairs Digital Media residency May 2023, Harvard Artlab September 2023 and Wake Forest University Character and Leadership February 2024.

Speaking engagements include: “Storytelling as Spiritual Vehicle: A response to the Armenian Genocide and Syrian Refugee Crisis” at The Brandenburger Gate Foundation, Berlin; “Trauma, Magic, Love: Being in Aleppo with Karagöz Puppets, My Ancestors and the Spirit of Osman Kavala” at CMES Harvard University; and “Paradox and Liberation: Bones, Puppets, and Psychdelic Journeys in the Play of Identity” as the 2024 Distinguished Haidostian Lecture at the Center for Armenian Studies at the University of Michigan. She is a Georgetown Global Politics and Performance Lab Fellow, 2024-26.

Ms. Tatoyan is a graduate of Wake Forest University (B.A. in English/Theater), where she was mentored by Dr. Maya Angelou.

Jared Mezzocchi

Jared Mezzocchi is a two-time Obie Award-winning theater artist, working as a director, multimedia designer, playwright, and actor. Based out of New York, Mezzocchi’s work has appeared at notable theaters nationwide, including Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theater, The Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth (company member), and many more. In 2016, he received the Lucille Lortel and Henry Hewes Award for his work in Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone at the Manhattan Theatre club. In 2020, the New York Times spotlighted his multimedia innovations alongside the pandemic work of four other theater artists, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Paula Vogel. His work on Sarah Gancher’s digital production of Russian Troll Farm was also celebrated as a New York Times critic pick, and praised for being one of the first digitally native successes for virtual theater. In 2023, this digital production of Russian Troll Farm won Mezzocchi his second Obie. Most recently, Mezzocchi directed The Wind and The Rain: a Story about Sunny’s Bar at En Garde Arts and Vineyard Theater which was performed on a barge in NYC and called “Highbrow Brilliant” by New York Magazine. In Spring 2024, Mezzocchi directed Sandra at TheaterWorks Hartford and was accepted, as a writer/performer, into the 2024 Colorado New Play Festival for his work 73 Seconds directed by Aya Ogawa and commissioned by En Garde Arts.

Mezzocchi is a two-time Macdowell Artist Fellow, a 2012 Princess Grace Award winner, and recently celebrated his retirement at The University of Maryland, where he taught in the MFA Design program for the projection and multimedia track, a curriculum he created in 2012.

Over the pandemic, Mezzocchi founded Virtual Design Collective (VIDCO), which has aided in the development of over 50 new digital works over the 18 months of quarantine. This year, he is finishing his book, A Multimedia Designer’s Method to Theatrical Storytelling, which will be published through Routledge. Mezzocchi has a BA in theater and film from Fairfield University, and an MFA in performance and interactive media arts from Brooklyn College.