How It Happens

Online: May 2021

Produced and Presented by: EnActe Arts and Rage Productions

Written By: Deepika Arwind

Director: Jeffery Lo

Music/Sound Composer: Brittany Mellerson

Stage Manager: Benjamin Wong

Creative Designer: Christopher Fitzer

Video Editor: Christopher Fitzer

Zoom Operator: Dan Holland

Cast:

Roshni Datta, Sonya Balsara, Maria Marquis

Locked down and COVID-positive, Miriam, a positivity influencer reaches out to Jo, a former friend and journalist. Jo’s newly released book references a thinly veiled account of high school bullying by Miriam, and Miriam, locked in a high rise apartment with her COVID positive mother, finds her carefully built up and hugely popular cyber profile not just disintegrate but turn into a cyber hate onslaught. Gripping, poignant and alarmingly relevant in millenial-speak.

HOW IT HAPPENS

A Social Media Storm in a Raging Pandemic

In a culture that is quick to judge, inflating and deflating the female celebrity, a vitriolic public media trial ensues when a positivity influencer is revealed as a childhood bully. The accused and the accuser, two childhood “friends” who haven’t spoken for 15 years are forced to revisit the ‘incident’ that tore them apart in high-school.

Written by Deepika Arwind, Directed by Jeffery Lo
Starring: Roshni Datta, Sonya Balsara, Maria G. Marquis
Creative team: Benjamin Kit Wong, Christopher Fitzer, Brittany Mellerson

Meet the amazing How it Happens family!

Written by Deepika Arwind

Deepika Arwind is a playwright, director and performer based out of Bangalore, India. Her work has been presented in many parts of the world including Germany, Austria, USA, France, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Singapore, Dubai, Beunos Aires and India.

She is also the author of Sarayu (Le Cosmographe Éditions). Her latest play Phantasmagoria (translated into German by Henning Bochert) will be at Teamtheater’s GLOBAL Festival, Munich, 2021.

Directed by Jeffery Lo

Jeffrey Lo is a Filipino-American playwright and director based in the Bay Area. His plays have been produced and workshopped at The BindleStiff Studio, City Lights Theatre Company, and Custom Made Theatre Company. He has worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and San Jose Repertory. He is a company member of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company and SF Playground.

He is the Director of Community Partnerships and Casting Director at the Tony Award Winning TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.

Jeffrey is a graduate of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute, and a proud alumnus of UC Irvine. He also works as an educator and advocate for issues of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

Creative Designer: Christopher Fitzer

Christopher Fitzer (Creative Designer) (he/him) is a freelance theatrical designer based in the San Fransisco Bay Area. Christopher is currently the properties master at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and part of the creative ensemble of Our Digital Stories. His previous design credits include productions at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Aspen Opera Theater Center, World Literature Today’s Puterbaugh Festival, San Jose Stage Co., Hillbarn Theatre, Woodminster Summer Musicals, Oklahoma City Theatre Co., Flat Rock Playhouse, Los Altos Stage Co., Douglas Morrisson Theatre, Palo Alto Players, and Foothill Music Theatre. He has held production and artistic positions at Aspen Music Festival, Curtis Opera Theatre at the Curtis Institute of Music, Sanguine Theatre Company, and Dallas Summer Musicals.

Stage Manager: Benjamin Kit Wong

Benjamin Kit Wong originally from Fremont, California; graduated from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa where he wrote his own major in theatre.

His works include Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Stage Manager, Hillbarn Theatre; The Language Archive, Production Assistant, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley; The Grapes of Wrath, Stage Manager, Los Altos Stage.

This is Mr. Wong’s first production with Enacte Arts, and couldn’t be more thrilled to be working again.

Sound Designer: Brittany Mellerson

BRITTANY MELLERSON is an East coast native and a graduate of Point Park University’s Conservatory Program, with a BFA in Theatrical Lighting & Sound Design.

Recent credits include lighting design for Princess Ida, A Little Night Music and Pirates of Penzance. As well as, the revival of Roger Grunwald’s The Obligation, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, and Graveyard Shift with SF Playhouse’s Sandbox Series.

Meet the Cast

Sonya Balsara

Sonya Balsara is an actor, singer, and writer based in New York City. She recently played Maria in West Side Story in Tokyo, Japan and was featured in the Broadway-bound reading of The Karate Kid: a musical. She can also be seen on CBS’s FBI, Amazon Prime’s Mozart in the Jungle, independent films, and various commercials and music videos.

Sonya is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She finds joy and inspiration through travel, volunteering, hiking, and playing bass guitar with her family band.

Roshni Datta

Roshni is a stage actress, dancer & choreographer based in California. She has acted and directed with various Bay Area theater companies.

She has been part of several Hindi & English language short films, sketches, TV shows, and commercials. She also likes to write poetry & compose parodies/ music videos.

Maria G. Marquis

Maria has been acting in the Bay Area since 2008, and is a theatre and voiceover actor, as well as corporate trainer committed to making work less boring. She is the recipient of Theatre Bay Area’s Best Principal Actress award for her work in the world premiere production of The Awakening with Breadbox Theater, and she has appeared numerous times with Dragon Productions and City Lights Theater Company where she received a nomination for Best Principal Actress in The Merchant of Venice and Silent Sky. You can learn more about Maria at mariagmarquis.com, and find her audiobooks on Audible.

South Asian Theatre with Universal Appeal