Bahareh Yaraghi

There’s a simple truthfulness to Yaraghi’s stage work, as she proved again in three productions this year. As a miller’s daughter in The Death Of The King, she easily morphed from the shy commoner to the ruler himself. In an update of Virgil’s epic The Aeneid, she took on multiple roles and stood out as the woman with whom the modern-day Aeneas finally settled, a stranger in a strange land. Her most mesmerizing work, though, was in Pomona, playing a seeming innocent in a world of monsters and manipulators who might herself be the most monstrous character of all.

Her stage career began in 1972 as one of the original members of The Acting Company, a professional touring theatre company in the US formed by John Houseman. She appeared in shows like The Cradle Will Rock, The Lower Depths, Love’s Labours Lost and Measure for Measure.

LuPone made her Broadway debut the following year when she took on the role of Irina in the 1973 play The Three Sisters, and two years later she was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in the musical The Robber Bridegroom.