For the students in Sanaz Toossi’s dramedy about mother tongues and other tongues, the world’s lingua franca is not exactly free.

Sanaz Toossi’s buoyant, Pulitzer-winning drama follows a group of Iranians learning English, highlighting the desires and circumscribed circumstances that have brought them to the class.

Unlike casual language learners - say, in a high school French class, or on Duolingo - for the characters in Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer-winning “English,” language acquisition feels imperative. Set in Karaj,