The Faculty of Dramatic Arts was, in many ways, the perfect environment for someone like Mohammad Kassabi. It gathered passionate students, established playwrights, innovative directors, and visionary thinkers under one roof. Here, Iranian theater was in conversation with global movements: European avant-garde, traditional Iranian performance styles, Stanislavski’s method, and local narratives all coexisted in a fertile artistic ecosystem.
Kassabi distinguished himself as both an actor and a stunt performer within the faculty. Working as a stunt double, both before and during his studies, deepened his understanding of physical performance and helped him develop a level of bodily control and expressiveness that later enriched his acting roles.
During his years in the faculty, he performed in numerous plays, many of them directed by renowned Iranian theater figures.
In 1973, Kassabi sat for the entrance exam to Iranian universities and was accepted into medical school—a prestigious achievement that brought pride to most families. Yet those who knew him understood that medicine, though respectable, was not his calling. Kassabi himself later recalled in interviews that even at that moment of academic success, he felt a tug toward another destiny.
He made a decision very few aspiring young men of his era dared to make: he gave up the opportunity to become a doctor and chose the uncertain life of an artist. Before making that leap, however, he fulfilled his mandatory military service, which he entered in 1972.
After returning from military service, he sat for the university entrance exam once again, this time with clarity about what he truly wanted. In 1974, he was accepted into the acting and directing program of cinema and theater at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts—an institution that served as the beating heart of Iran’s artistic innovation during the 1970s. It was here that his talent would be formally cultivated.
