Thatha’s Play

Overview

After graduating from college and not getting a job in tech, Ayush returns home to live with his disappointed Appa (father) and his aging Thatha (grandfather), who has dementia. Despite promising to prepare for coding interviews, Ayush is fixated on writing the next great American (read: white) play. As he spends more time at home however, he starts to write about his Thatha, piecing together fragments and imagined pasts of his grandfather’s life in order to try to understand his family and his place in it.

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About the Artist

Siddarth Anand is a South Asian-American playwright and performer originally from the DC area. His plays are about family, growing up, and identity. He writes because the act of writing about and paying attention to something is a tremendous act of love, and also because its pretty fun. He is an alumnus of the PlayPenn Playwright's Cohort. His plays have been workshopped at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and Fresh Lime Soda Productions in New York City. Outside of the arts, he is also enthusiastic about community-building, leftist organizing, and lentils.

Priyanka Shetty is an award-winning actor, director, and playwright based in Philadelphia, PA. As a creator of original works, Priyanka is focused on making art that is a reflection of our times. With humor, insight, and raw energy, her plays pose critical questions about contemporary issues, engender dialogue, and are a call for solidarity and collective action. Her critically acclaimed one-woman show THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM has been performed at numerous venues across the country including The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and was presented at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Assembly Festival followed by a Scotland Tour. Priyanka is premiering her second solo show #CHARLOTTESVILLE at the multiple Helen Hayes award-winning Keegan Theatre in Washington DC next year. She was recently awarded a generous grant by the National Endowment of the Arts for the development of THE WALL, the third and final play in her Triptych of Solos which will see a nationwide rollout in 2025/26. Priyanka earned an MFA in Acting from the University of Virginia and has served on the faculty of the University of Virginia’s Department of Drama. www.priyankashetty.com