A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. In 1980, after the Soviet invasion of his birthplace, Khaled and his family were granted political asylum in the U.S. Khaled studied medicine and practiced as a physician in California until 2004, after which he dedicated himself to writing. He is the author of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and other books. He has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, since 2006.  In 2008, he launched The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He lives in CA.

Composer
At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Composer, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Seattle, WA
Seattle Opera Debut
Sheila Silver is a distinguished composer of chamber and orchestral music, songs, and opera. “Only a few composers in any generation enliven the art form with their musical language and herald new directions in music. Sheila Silver is such a visionary.” (Wetterauer Zeitung) A Thousand Splendid Suns was developed with the support of American Opera Projects, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Opera America, including two Virginia B. Toulmin awards (Discovery Grant and Commissioning Grant). As a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, she traveled to India to study Hindustani music with master singer Kedar Narayan Bodas in order to incorporate elements of Hindustani music into her score for A Thousand Splendid Suns. Her opera The Wooden Sword won the Sackler Prize in Music Composition for Opera. Other awards include the Rome Prize, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Composers Award, a Bunting Institute/Radcliffe Fellowship, and the Prix de Paris. Her work has been commissioned and performed throughout the world. She is Professor Emeritus of Music at Stony Brook University. Silver was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and began studying piano at the age of 5. She and her husband, filmmaker John Feldman, make their home in the Hudson Valley, New York. Their son, Victor Feldman, is a journalist.

Last Updated: November 2022

Librettist
At Seattle Opera in 2021/22: Librettist, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: New York, NY
Seattle Opera Debut
Stephen Kitsakos is an opera librettist, theater writer and performing arts educator. Writing commissions include the NEA, NYSCA, American Opera Project, BMI Foundation, Florida Arts Council, ABC-CLIO, ASCAP Foundation, Seattle Opera, Catskill Watershed Corp. and the Episcopal Diocese of NY. With the composer Sheila Silver he wrote the libretto for The Wooden Sword (2009) and the cantata The White Rooster (2010) for the Smithsonian Institution. Other collaborations include The Other Voice (1998) with composer Robert Starer and Gail Godwin, Single Occupancies (2020) with composer Martin Hennessy and librettist Mark Campbell and The Pleasing Recollection, A Cabaret Opera (2022) for baritone Michael Kelly, with music by Hennessy. A contributing writer for The Sondheim Review, Kitsakos was a professor of Theater Arts at SUNY New Paltz, and currently teaches at UCLA Osher Institute and The Studios of Key West. Upcoming projects include the opera adaptation of Jedrowski’s Swimming in the Dark with Hennessy.

Last Updated: November 2022

Conductor
At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Conductor, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Big Spring, TX
Seattle Opera Debut: Flight (’21)
Previously at Seattle Opera: Blue (’22)
Engagements: We Shall Not Be Moved (Opera Philadelphia, Dutch National Opera); Voir Dire (Fort Worth Opera)

Last updated: January 2022

Stage Director
At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Stage Director, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Herat, Afghanistan
Seattle Opera Debut
Roya Sadat is Afghanistan’s first woman film and television producer during the post-Taliban era and the winner of more than 20 international film awards, including the 2021 Kim Dae Jung Nobel Peace Film Award and the 2018 International Women of Courage Award presented by the United States Department of State. Sadat is among the BBC’s 100 Inspiring and Influential Women for 2021. Her three films—A Letter to the President (’17), Playing the Taar (’08), and Three Dots (’03)—have been invited to more than 60 International Film Festivals. A Letter to the President was selected as the official entry from Afghanistan for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90^th Academy Awards. In addition, she has produced eight documentary films, three television programs, as well as a music video.

Last Updated: February 2022

At Seattle Opera in 2024/25: Director, Les Troyens in Concert

Hometown: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Seattle Opera Debut: Assistant Director, Charlie Parker’s Yardbird (’20)
Previously at Seattle Opera: Associate Stage Director, A Thousand Splendid Suns ('23); Assistant Director, Blue (’22); Artistic Administration Intern (’12–13)
Recent Engagements: Assistant Director, Lucia Di Lammermore (LA Opera); Assistant Director, Falstaff, and The Lord of Cries (Santa Fe Opera); Associate Producer, Svadba (Boston Lyric Opera & Opera Philadelphia); Associate Producer, Solider Song (Opera Philadelphia)
Upcoming Engagements: Assistant Director, Pelleas (Santa Fe Opera)

Last Updated: April 2024

Set Designer
At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Set Designer, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Seattle Opera Debut
Engagements: Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski (Berkeley Repertory Theatre); Holiday (Arena Stage); There’s Always the Hudson (Woolly Mammoth Theatre); Turandot (Teatro Degollado); Kleptocracy (Arena Stage); Beastgirl (The Kennedy Center)

Last Updated: December 2022

At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Costume Designer, Bound

Hometown: Seattle, WA
Seattle Opera Debut: The Marriage of Figaro (’09)
Previously at Seattle Opera: A Thousand Splendid Suns (’23); The Turn of the Screw (’19), Beatrice and Benedict (’18); An American Dream (’15); Lucia di Lammermoor (’10)
Recently: The Crucible, Dracula, and Mr. Burns – A Post Electric Play (ACT Theatre); A Dolls House part 2, True West, and The Hound of the Baskervilles (Seattle Repertory Theatre)

Last updated: April 2023

At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Lighting Designer, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: New York, NY
Seattle Opera Debut
Engagements: A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre); 1776 (American Airlines Theatre); Death of a Salesman (Hudson Theatre); Selling Kabul (Playwrights Horizons); The Pearl Fishers (Metropolitan Opera); Blue Man Group (National Tour)

Last Updated: December 2022

Sound Designer
At Seattle Opera in 2024/25: Jubilee; The Magic Flute; Tosca

Hometown: Seattle, WA
Seattle Opera Debut: The Falling & The Rising (’19)
Previously at Seattle Opera: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (’24); Das Rheingold (’23); A Thousand Splendid Suns (’23); Orpheus and Eurydice (’22); Tosca ('21); Flight ('21); Don Giovanni ('21); Charlie Parker’s Yardbird (’20)
Engagements: Sound Designer, Camelot (Village Theatre); Composer, Murder in the Alps (Laguna Playhouse)

Last updated: June 2024

Cultural Consultant
At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Cultural Consultant, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Kabul, Afghanistan
Seattle Opera Debut
Humaira Ghilzai is a sought-after cultural expert, speaker, and writer with a mission to unveil the beauty, poetry, and humanity of the Afghan people through stories. Humaira made her Broadway debut in 2022 with the production of The Kite Runnerand has been working on the opera A Thousand Splendid Suns since 2017.
Engagements: US and UK tours of the theatrical adaptations of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner; J.T. Roger’s Blood and Gifts (La Jolla Playhouse); Gabriel Jason Dean’s Heartland (off-Broadway); Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul (Seattle Rep & Signature Theatre); Two Jews Walk Into a War (Theatre J); Kevin Artigue’s The Most Dangerous Highway in the World (Golden Thread Productions).
Film & TV Credits: Little America; Whiskey Tango Foxtrot; Merry Friggin’ Christmas.

Last Updated: September 2022

Fight Director
At Seattle Opera in 2024/25: Pagliacci, Jubilee

Hometown: Seattle, WA
Seattle Opera Debut: War and Peace (’90)
Previously at Seattle Opera: A Thousand Splendid Suns (’23); Rigoletto (’19); Carmen (’19); Il trovatore (’19); The Ring (’13, ’00)
Engagements: Fat Ham (Seattle Rep); The Skin of Our Teeth (Seattle Rep); Sweat (ACT Theatre); Macbeth (Seattle Shakespeare Company); Camelot (Village Theatre)

Last Updated: September 2024

At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Costume Cultural & Historical Consultant, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Herat, Afghanistan
Seattle Opera Debut
Rika Sadat is an entrepreneur, businesswoman, and one of Afghanistan’s most prominent fashion and costume designers. In addition to designing the sets for some of the country’s most famous television shows, she has used her fashion business to work in direct opposition to the Taliban’s strict and oppressive rule. Sadat is the Founder and Director of Abnoos, a women-led luxury silk COVID-19 mask business and modeling company, which she developed under the Taliban to create employment opportunities for women suffering during the pandemic and Afghanistan’s rising humanitarian crisis.

Last Updated: January 2023

At Seattle Opera in 2022/23: Production Consultant, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hometown: Kabul, Afghanistan
Seattle Opera Debut
Aziz Deildaar is a writer, editor, and cinematographer whose work in TV and film has been seen around the word. His screenplay for A Letter to the President (2017) won the award for Best Screenplay at the 9th annual South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Film Festival in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Deildaar served as Lecturer in the Department of Cinema at Kabul University from 2006–2021, and from 2009–2021 he was CEO of Roya Film House. He currently works as Program Manager for the Herat International Women’s Film Festival.

Last Updated: January 2023