Ankita Raturi

Q imports earth from their homeland to grow peculiar plants in a community garden, cultivating a little plot of home in this new land. Jon, the community garden manager, doesn’t trust this mysterious immigrant or their foreign dirt. But much to his terror, Jon’s eleven-year-old daughter is intractably drawn to the enigmatic Q and their unearthly garden. A creative response to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, FIFTY BOXES OF EARTH asks us to consider the heavy costs of leaving a home to put down new roots.

Neha (नेहा) fears she has failed to pass her language and culture down to her seventeen-year-old son, Neel (नील). A summer trip to visit colleges could be Neha’s last chance, if only she can get Neel to visit the historic Hope Diamond and witness a piece of Indian history for himself. नेहा & Neel asks what we lose with every generation in America, and if it’s ever too late to connect with your roots.

2009 - Citra and Melati are highly ranked youth badminton players, ready to represent Indonesia internationally. But while Melati starts traveling to play in major junior tournaments on her own, Citra immigrates with her family to Washington D.C. where she has to give up her dreams of becoming the next Susi Susanti. They both have what the other wants – Citra has her family and all the opportunities America has to offer, just not badminton; meanwhile Melati is on the path to playing professionally and representing Indonesia on the global stage, but she feels alone. Citra's new friends in D.C. and Melati's on the international badminton circuit are played by the same actors, creating mirrored worlds where these two young athletes grapple with what they really want from life. The play toggles between both girls’ experiences and asks big questions about the costs of national pride, familial expectations, and what it means to figure out who you are away from where you’re from.

THE ELEPHANT IS VERY LIKE is about a woman who cannot say any words that have not first been spoken to her and a man who tries and fails and tries again to help her. They find themselves in a nebulous space, which magically provides them tools – if they know how to ask. A bilingual trio of performers operates like a Greek chorus, at least to the man. To the woman, they are a trio of kathakars, storytellers from the South Asian dance-theatre tradition Kathak.

Ankita Raturi is at war. With her bowels. And she wants to tell you all the story of her journey with ulcerative colitis, but she can't do it by herself. And she also can't remember all the details. And she also can't find an actor to accurately portray her mom. So can she really do this?

Kate and Hailey fell in love hard and got married fast, but do they really know each other as well as they think? On their honeymoon, floating along the serene and beautiful backwaters of Kerala on the southwestern coast of India, the newlyweds are eaten alive by both mosquitoes and the racial legacies that shape their lives. Backwaters is an audio play that asks how well we truly know those closest to us, and if love can save us from the toxic, even lethal, cultural baggage we carry.

Ina and Sumaira have a plan, but Ina’s uterus has a different one. SAHI VAQT PE or THE ONE WITH THE BIOLOGICAL CLOCK is about two women whose hearts, minds, and bodies are all on different timelines.

a long form poem that is also a play
or a short play that is also a poem
in which a chaiwallah prepares a cup of kolkata chai
and asks us to slow down
for a moment
and take some time for adda

Four women in their fifties and sixties sit on a Persian rug, leaning on bolster pillows, wearing Mughal era clothes and jewelry, playing cards and smoking hookah.

A one-page play. Independently published as part of a collection in "A Little Bit of Drama" (a zine by Paige Esterly).