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Everyone Loves a Good Tsunami

Presented by Shunya Theatre at Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex

April 3-April 12, 2009

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Shunya Theatre presents Everyone Loves a Good Tsunami, a play in English by Sujit Saraf.  Performing April 3 through April 12 at Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex.  Everyone Loves a Good Tsunami is a brilliant and light-hearted farce which reveals the behind-the-scenes politics of a non-profit organization in California. Shunya Theatre, Houston's premier South Asian theatre troupe, gives a comedic performance that is certain to have you laughing -- and perhaps recalling someone you know!

The playwright writes:

In December 2004, a devastating tsunami killed more than a hundred thousand people in Asia. It was the holiday season in much of the world. Families were glued to their televisions, donor nations and aid agencies were at the front-end of their 2005 budget cycles. The tsunami had timed itself perfectly. The world donated with a generosity unseen before.

From my vantage point in Silicon Valley, home to noveau-billionaires, I saw how people were happy to use any opportunity to advance their public profiles. Much pious rubbish was mouthed during the campaign to collect money for the victims; many people got their first chance to give television interviews; many mediocre artists got to perform; many organizations managed to grab news headlines. Soon, however, the world had seen newer and more fashionable disasters, and the market moved where market-forces led it.

Everyone Loves A Good Tsunami is a farce about competing "non-profit" organizations in Silicon Valley which, amidst organizational turmoil, are suddenly presented with a convenient tsunami. It was staged by Naatak (California) in December, 2005, Natya Bharati (Washington DC) in May, 2007 and Pratidhwani (Seattle) in June, 2007.

Bio:
I was born in Bihar, India, went to school in Darjeeling and Delhi, then received engineering degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the University of California, Berkeley. For a few years, I was a research scientist with NASA, then briefly an assistant professor at IIT Delhi. I now work in Palo Alto, California, where I conduct research on space missions and satellite control. I am the artistic director of Naatak, a theater and film company near San Francisco.