South Asian Theatre with Universal Appeal

The Case of the Vanishing Firefish

Palo Alto Jan 2020

Produced and Presented by: EnActe Arts

Based on the book Ayesha and the Firefish by: Ajay Chowdhury

Adapted by: Vinita Sud Belani and Raashina Humayun

Written By:

Vinita Sud Belani, Parker Downey, Sameer Gauri, Vineet Gupta, Anika Jayaram, Zoya Khare, Amytza Maskati, Vivaan Mudgil, Inika Mukherjee, Vijay M. Rajan, Uma Ramesh,  Uma Sakhalkar, Varin Sikka, Sanjana Taware

Director: Vinita Sud Belani

Assistant Director: Raashina Humayun

Music Composer: Randy Armstrong

Costumes: Namita Vakil Jaggia and Raashina Humayun

Makeup and Hair: Jeshka Yurash and Caitlyn Slavich

Sets and Props: Keya Chatterjee and Suruchi Chandorkar

Choreography: Maria Basile

Veksler Academy Performance VIP Team Instructor: Laura Graham-Marquad

Projections: David Murakami

Lighting Design: Meghna Singhai

Stage Manager: Michael Ramirez

Lyricist: Angelina Melwani

Artwork: Catalina Willis and Sukanya Sarkar

A climate change fable for our times! If the bioluminescent phytoplankton (aka firefish) keep disappearing, life as we know it on the planet will be destroyed! Ten-year-old Ayesha has courage, intelligence, creativity, and a complete lack of caution. Even so, the mission that Shekina, Queen of the Seas, has charged her with may be slightly out of her league! Surrounded by cryptic clues involving Galileo, Gaudi’s Casa Batllo, Stephen Hawking’s theories and the science of wormholes, Ayesha undertakes a perilous quest across the world with naught but a snarky surfboarding snail as a sidekick!

Cast:

Baadj Ahluwalia, Sonal Aggarwal, Katy Alaniz Barnhill, Kenneth Boswell, Roshni Datta, Diya Dipak, Elizabeth Finkler, Karsten Freeman, Anika Jayaram, Peter Jeensalute, Zoya Khare, Nila Kumar, Amytza Maskati, Vivaan Mudgil, Inika Mukherjee, José Ornelas, Dilip Ratnam (Oct. 2),   Samantha Rasler, Anita Ratnam, Joseph Rios, Shekhar Sakhalkar (Sept. 30, Oct. 1), Brady Voss, Deepti Warrier, Gaurav Warrier 

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See full production image gallery here. 

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