Seemia Theatre – the award-winning international ensemble behind Evros | The Crossing River – return with Saria Callas, a sexy, camp, pop-filled multimedia production that explores the taboo of women’s voices, generational shifts in gender identity and unpacking the intersectional grey area of what life is like for women in terms of support, survival and self-expression.

Saria Callas is written, performed and co-directed by Sara Amini. Sara is an Iranian artist, a classically trained singer and Artistic Director of Seemia Theatre. The work intertwines fact and fiction, drawing on Amini’s own personal lived experiences to create a compelling narrative.

Growing up in Tehran, Sara always dreamed of becoming a singer. But since Iran’s 1979 revolution, women have been banned from singing in public – a restriction that remains in place today. Now in London, as Sara raises her child who is questioning their gender identity, she finds herself navigating new kinds of social pressure – and unspoken fears – as a parent. What does it mean to raise your voice when history has taught you to be silent? And how can someone who has fought for their own rights, then stand in the way of someone else’s freedom? As we join Sara, she’s already a bottle of red in, reminiscing about her experiences of childhood to womanhood. We revisit Tehran, the school-bus parties, the wannabe prayer-caller and the secret w**ks at the all-girls’ school.

Now Sara stands at a crossroads with her child. How does a woman who has experienced firsthand repression of her body and voice react as her child struggles with their own identity? Saria Callas highlights an often-unheard perspective of the supportive parent, intertwined with her own personal challenges.

Drawing on personal stories, historical context, and collective memory, Saria Callas revisits the secret defiance of girlhood in Iran. Weaving video, lip-sync, humour and vulnerability, the play becomes both a love letter to music and a reckoning with what’s passed between mother and child.

The production arrives at a time when women’s voices are increasingly under threat worldwide. In Afghanistan, for example, female artists have been banned from singing since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. In Iran, many women now risk arrest by sharing singing videos online, often in defiance of both the ban on solo female vocalists and the country’s mandatory hijab laws.

And while rooted in the Iranian context, Saria Callas also confronts the wider global erosion of women’s rights. In one powerful sequence, Sara faces an unwanted pregnancy while living in Poland, where access to abortion is severely restricted, and is forced to cross borders to seek basic healthcare.

By reflecting on the oppression of women, non-binary & trans people, Saria Callas invites audiences to consider how state control over people’s bodies manifests across cultures and borders, from Tehran to Warsaw, Paris to London, and the world over

In a time when Westminster, Holyrood and Washington seem obsessed with vilifying trans people, Saria Callas tries to unpack the reality behind suppression and becoming the oppressor.

Developed in collaboration with fellow Iranian and international artists, Saria Callas becomes both a love letter to music and a reckoning with what’s passed between mother and child, offering a rare platform for voices often excluded from mainstream narratives. Through the lens of one woman’s story, Saria Callas invites audiences to consider what it means to resist – through art, through parenting, and through simply being yourself.