Iranian director Amir Reza Koohestani said Iranian-passport holders in his company could not obtain US visas for the play "Blind Runner" in California, Culture OC reported.
According to a question-and-answer interview with Mr Koohestani published by Culture OC, the company was told that actors and technicians with Iranian passports could not obtain visas. This followed an invitation from South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.
Culture OC's standfirst says the US visa restrictions are keeping Mr Koohestani away from the Costa Mesa run. The outlet presented his replies as written answers, and he said: "I answered these questions in three countries in four days."
The text of the report available to Tehran Telegraph does not say who told the company about the visa problem. It also does not say which US rule applies. Tehran Telegraph has not been able to confirm the claim independently.
No response from the US State Department or the White House had been reported. No separate statement from South Coast Repertory had been found.
South Coast Repertory is staging the West Coast premiere of "Blind Runner". According to the theatre's production page, the run is scheduled from 18 October to 8 November 2026.
The production is by Mehr Theatre Group, with Mr Koohestani as writer and director. Culture OC describes the group as Obie Award-winning, Iranian-founded and Paris-based.
South Coast Repertory lists the production as being in association with the Department of Drama at the University of California, Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts.
Mr Koohestani told Culture OC the company had been able to travel to the US before. It played St Ann's Warehouse in New York in January 2025, after applying for visas in November 2024.
He said: "We applied for American visas in November 2024, and I believe we were among the last Iranian passport holders to receive them."
It was not clear whether any members of the company would travel to California. It was also not clear whether the run would go ahead as planned, or in what form.
The play lasts 60 minutes and is performed in Farsi, also known as Persian, with English supertitles. Two actors play three characters, and Ainaz Azarhoush plays both the imprisoned wife and the blind runner. The staging uses live cameras and video projection.
The plot follows an Iranian man whose wife is jailed for political activism. She asks him to help Parisa, a young woman blinded during protests, who plans to run through the Channel Tunnel from France to England, according to Culture OC and the Triennale Milano.
Mr Koohestani is an Iranian playwright and director from Shiraz. The review site The Front Row Center calls him a leading figure in Iran's contemporary theatre, and his work has toured internationally.
The New York Sun links the play's running theme to the Green Movement, which protested the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. In a program note quoted by the New York Sun, Mr Koohestani wrote that running replaced demonstrations that were no longer being held.
The play premiered in Brussels in 2023 and was part of the 2023 edition of the Festival d'Automne in Paris. It has also been staged in Milan, where Triennale Milano lists a performance on 24 October, and has been listed at Esplanade in Singapore.
The North American premiere took place at Saint Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, which the New York Sun reported on 9 January 2025. The Front Row Center reviewed that run the next day as part of the Under the Radar festival.
The Costa Mesa run is due to open on 18 October 2026. How the production will proceed with its Iranian-passport company members had yet to be confirmed.
