‘History Boys’ to be Staged in Mid-Summer

TEHRAN –(Iranart) The History Boys,’ a play by British playwright Alan Bennet, 83, will go on stage in Tehran after eight months of rehearsal. Ashkan Kheil Nejad, 29, is the director of the play which was rendered in Persian by translator Mohsen Abolhassani, 36, ISNA reported.

The play is slated for mid-summer at Chaharsou Hall of Tehran City Theater. The opening day of the show is yet to be announced.

The play opens in Cutlers’ Grammar School, Sheffield, a fictional boys’ grammar school in north England. Set in the early 1980s, the play follows a group of history pupils preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations under the guidance of three teachers: Hector, Irwin, and Lintott, each with a different and sometimes opposing style.

Hector, an eccentric teacher, delights in knowledge for its own sake, but the headmaster ambitiously wants the school to move up the academic league table; Irwin, a supply teacher, is hired to introduce a rather more cynical and ruthless style of teaching.

The character of Hector was based on the schoolmaster and author Frank McEachran (1900–1975) who was a British schoolmaster and author. He taught at English public schools and the University of Leipzig in Germany and wrote on philosophy, but his most commercially successful books were his anthologies ‘Spells for Poets’ and ‘More Spells’ which appeared in the 1950s.

Cast members of the upcoming play are a number of professional thespians, together with a few award winners from academic events.

Born in 1988, Ashkan Kheil Nejad, received master’s degree in theatre from Teacher Training University of Tehran. He has directed many shows including ‘Whispers behind the Front Line’, ‘Whose Is This Life?’ and ‘The 21st Night’. He also co-directed ‘Act 3 Scene 4.’