Deepak Kumar

I'm a playwright, composer, lyricist, and researcher based in San Diego, CA. I write about the questions that keep me up at night, whether they be about Asianness, technology, youth, board games, or soul-eating demons. I'm also a professor in Computer Science which very much informs my writing practice. My work has been developed and produced all over, with some highlights including the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center (NPC '22), the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT '22), Theo, Village Theatre, and Prospect Theatre Company.

I'm a playwright, composer, lyricist, and researcher based in San Diego, CA. I write about the questions that keep me up at night, whether they be about Asianness, technology, youth, board games, or soul-eating demons. I'm also a professor in Computer Science which very much informs my writing practice. My work has been developed and produced all over, with some highlights including the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center (NPC '22), the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT '22), Theo, Village Theatre, and Prospect Theatre Company.

Scripts

Advanced Persistent Teenagers

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

Axyz and Lapras are two extraordinarily talented teenage boys who spend their days gabbing on voice chat, dunking on their peers, and hacking children’s video games for fun and profit. When their hacker collective abruptly disbands, the two are left unmoored. Axyz wants to start a new hacker group and establish ultimate dominance in the hacker scene. Lapras is content tinkering with weird hacks while toiling...

Axyz and Lapras are two extraordinarily talented teenage boys who spend their days gabbing on voice chat, dunking on their peers, and hacking children’s video games for fun and profit. When their hacker collective abruptly disbands, the two are left unmoored. Axyz wants to start a new hacker group and establish ultimate dominance in the hacker scene. Lapras is content tinkering with weird hacks while toiling away as a technical service agent at Geek Squad. Both are existentially unfulfilled. ADVANCED PERSISTENT TEENAGERS is a play about loneliness, connection, and trying to find agency and meaning as a young person in today's America. A commission from Audible.

Stories in Mother Tongues

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

Paati, the 79 year old matriarch of the family, spends her days waiting to die. The only bright spot left in her life is a one-woman show she puts on every night to an increasingly aging American theatre audience. But when her granddaughter, son, and daughter-in-law are corrupted by their inner demons and threaten to destroy her play, Paati has to team up with an unlikely ally: her aimless and existentially...

Paati, the 79 year old matriarch of the family, spends her days waiting to die. The only bright spot left in her life is a one-woman show she puts on every night to an increasingly aging American theatre audience. But when her granddaughter, son, and daughter-in-law are corrupted by their inner demons and threaten to destroy her play, Paati has to team up with an unlikely ally: her aimless and existentially tortured American grandson, Giri. Will Giri and Paati defeat the demons and keep the play running? Or will the show just… end? A metatheatrical action adventure about tradition, expectation, and learning to speak in your mother tongue.

House of India

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

In memory of her late husband, Ananya runs “House of India,” the last remaining restaurant in a once-flourishing Asian strip mall outside of Cleveland. All around her are pressures to change – from her finances, from her kids, and most persistently, from Jacob, a Thai-American entrepreneur (and current cook at the restaurant) who is determined to convert the traditional restaurant into a nationwide fast-casual...

In memory of her late husband, Ananya runs “House of India,” the last remaining restaurant in a once-flourishing Asian strip mall outside of Cleveland. All around her are pressures to change – from her finances, from her kids, and most persistently, from Jacob, a Thai-American entrepreneur (and current cook at the restaurant) who is determined to convert the traditional restaurant into a nationwide fast-casual Indo-fusion franchise (think: Indian Chipotle). When the restaurant is vandalized, Ananya must make a choice: give up on her husband's “American dream” and close up shop, or compromise on her values to stay afloat? A play about South Indian food, familial expectations, and figuring out what really makes a "House" a home.

Baked! The Musical

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

When she doesn’t receive the scholarship that would send her to her dream school, habitual overachiever Jane Huang, with the help of her best friend, joins forces with the class degenerate to build the greatest drug empire ever run by high schoolers. Kept in the dark are Jane’s parents, whose inability to cope with their daughter leaving for college while maintaining a profit at their struggling Chinese bakery...

When she doesn’t receive the scholarship that would send her to her dream school, habitual overachiever Jane Huang, with the help of her best friend, joins forces with the class degenerate to build the greatest drug empire ever run by high schoolers. Kept in the dark are Jane’s parents, whose inability to cope with their daughter leaving for college while maintaining a profit at their struggling Chinese bakery drives them to pry and potentially unravel Jane’s web of lies.

Baked! The Musical is a reflection on failure, self worth, and the question of what we owe the people we love. It features an all Asian American cast, and the themes are born out of the writers’ own experiences growing up as the children of immigrants in the US.

Newton's Third Law

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

10-minute. Vishnu is a 30-something year old atheist who lives with his parents with no girlfriend and no job. He has some questions for God.

10-minute. Vishnu is a 30-something year old atheist who lives with his parents with no girlfriend and no job. He has some questions for God.

Engaged in the Time of COVID-19

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

An engaged couple grapples with the loss of their dream wedding during a global pandemic.

#1MPF

An engaged couple grapples with the loss of their dream wedding during a global pandemic.

#1MPF

CRUSH

by Deepak Kumar

Synopsis

10-minute. Sanket has a crush on Carrie, but asking out a white girl as a brown kid in high school comes with its challenges.

An exploration of racial preferences in South Asian dating.

10-minute. Sanket has a crush on Carrie, but asking out a white girl as a brown kid in high school comes with its challenges.

An exploration of racial preferences in South Asian dating.