The Life You Gave Me
A son tries to save his mother. She has other ideas. So do two mysterious strangers who watch the play—and ask the son to tell the story again and again until he gets it right, whatever right might be.
Novid Parsi (NOHV-eed PAHR-see) is a playwright whose recent work includes The Life You Gave Me, winner of the Crossroads Project’s Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative; Remains and Returns, winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival; and Through the Elevated Line, Jeff Award nominee for best new work. His plays have been produced or developed by Boise Contemporary Theater, Golden Thread Productions, Illinois State University, The New Group, Paines Plough, Playwrights Foundation, Queens Theatre, Silk Road Rising, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, and the University of Illinois, among others. Novid is a two-time finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Woodward/Newman Award, and a finalist for Amphibian Stage’s SparkFest and Broad Horizons’ New Voices. A son of Iranian immigrants, Novid grew up in East Texas, earned degrees in literature from Swarthmore College and Duke University, and lived in England and Chicago. Novid and his husband live in St. Louis.
The Road: Two plays by Steve Yockey, Mercury and Reykjavík, the latter a filmed live play production, honored with laurels at several international film festivals. Scintilla by Alessandro Camon. Jami Brandli’s Through the Eye of a Needle. Numerous readings for The Road’s Word, Under Construction and Summer Playwrights Festival. Theatre 40: The Half-Light, Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Silent Sky, Good People, As Good As Gold, Bus Stop, Holy Days, Driving Miss Daisy, and Another Part of the Forest. Others include world premieres of The Favorite by Joe Correll at Avery Schreiber Playhouse, and Forever Bound by Steve Apostolina at Atwater Theatre. Ann participated as a director in Center Theatre Group’s 2022 LA Writers’ Workshop at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Los Angeles theater acting credits: South Coast Repertory, LATC, Theatre 40, Missing Piece Theater, Taper Too, CAST Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre. Regional: Springer Opera House, New Harmony Theatre, Alaska Repertory. Film/TV: Strange Nature, Lorenzo’s Oil, The Accused, My Father the Hero, The Dollmaker, ER, Designing Women, Evening Shade, and Rizzoli & Isles.
“The Life You Gave Me”
Mother – Adriana Sevan
Son – Behzad Dabu
Woman – Krishna Smitha*
Man – Danny Lee Gomez*
Stage Directions – Stephanie Erb*
*Road Company Member