Saffron Stain follows Avat, a fiercely introspective Iranian woman, as she makes the life-altering decision to leave Iran with her young daughter Bahar, chasing a version of freedom that her homeland cannot offer. As she lands in the United States, a place filled with both possibility and alienation, she begins to unravel in a cultural limbo where identity, motherhood, love, and exile collide. Through deeply personal memories, sharp confrontations, and intimate moments with her daughter, husband, and mother, Avat must weigh the cost of her independence against the love she left behind.

The play moves fluidly between time and place, memory and present, Tehran and the U.S., reflecting the fragmentation of Avat’s inner world. The stage itself—divided into two distinct cultural spheres—serves as a metaphor for this dislocation. Her story is interwoven with traditional Iranian music, David Bowie, bureaucratic red tape, and the quiet acts of resistance found in everyday domestic life. As the Trump-era travel ban looms overhead, Avat’s ability to remain connected to her child is threatened—not just emotionally, but politically and legally.

At its core, Saffron Stain is a meditation on belonging, choice, and the emotional labor of immigration. It delves into the complexity of being a woman stretched across borders, trying to live freely without losing everything she loves. Poetic, raw, and hauntingly familiar to anyone caught between cultures, the play invites us to reconsider what it means to call a place home—and who gets to decide.