Part riveting historical drama, part scorching satire, Talene Monahon’s MEET THE CARTOZIANS pulls back the curtain on a startling chapter of American history you may never have heard.
This bold, witty new play follows two sets of Armenian Americans: one man fighting for legal recognition in the 1920s, while a century later, his descendant fights for followers and a competent glam team. A wildly imaginative and deeply compelling story of culture and heritage, MEET THE CARTOZIANS asks who gets to belong—and at what cost?
Too often, modern political theatre forces characters to parrot a mantra the audience already believes, a reassurance that you and the playwright voted for the same people and did the right thing by coming to the theatre. Meet the Cartozians should not leave anyone feeling this misplaced sense of gratification.
In the 1925 court case United States v. Cartozian, the U.S. government sued to revoke the citizenship of a man named Tatos Cartozian, on the grounds that Armenians like him weren’t white. The Armenian-American playwright Talene Monahon has now worked that story into Meet the Cartozians, a sprawling, fascinating work of historical fiction that examines ethnicity, history and family legacy.
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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