“Whispers of a Banyan Tree” is just one of the unique shows presented at this year’s South Asian Theatre Festival. (Image courtesy of Mavish Khan)
Celebrating its 21st year this summer, the South Asian Theatre Festival marked a major milestone by expanding to two weekends. The festival, presented by Epic Actors’ Workshop in partnership with CoLab Arts, was held at CoLab Arts’ newly renovated performance space in New Brunswick.
What was reflected on stage this June is a community that refuses to shy away from difficult conversations regarding health, politics and family.
“Theater is the mirror of society,” said Dipan Ray, founder and chairperson of the annual South Asian Theatre Festival (SATF). This year’s lineup reflected many of society’s most pressing issues, including cultural stigmas around mental health, the challenges of elder care, and corruption in media and politics.
Breaking cultural taboos
The festival opened with “Heart Burst” (also known as “Shiv’s Project”), which chronicles 14-year-old Shiv Kulkarni’s struggles with mental health before his suicide in 2021. Written and directed by Dan Swern, co-founder and producing director of CoLab Arts, the verbatim play — a documentary-style play — came together entirely from interviews with Kulkarni’s family, friends and mentors.
For the cast, the production was an opportunity to confront deep-seated cultural stigmas.
“Conversations surrounding mental health in the South Asian community have been really taboo for such a long time,” said actor Shreya Ambatti, who portrays Kulkarni’s sister, Saanvi. “You always feel like you’re under this microscope and have to perform to meet other people’s standards.”
Shreya Ambatti in “Heart Burst.” (Image courtesy of Koushik Bhowal)
Ambatti noted that vulnerable conversations are often mischaracterized as a sign of weakness in South Asian households. “I see that a lot in the past couple generations before me, and it's something that I've been actively trying to question and remove from my own toolkit,” she said.
The festival continued to confront uncomfortable realities with “What it Takes,” a collaborative production between Overlook Medical Center, Vivid Stage and Epic Actors’ Workshop.
Subhasis Das, founder of the alternative theater platform Theater in Life, developed the piece through workshops with real cancer patients rather than using a traditional script. The production’s minimalist setup—utilizing only chairs and script stands—created an intimate atmosphere that brought the realities of a cancer diagnosis directly to the audience.
Preserving language and roots
Beyond tackling contemporary crises, the festival served as a vital cultural bridge for the diaspora, offering productions in regional languages that connected older generations to their homeland.
Spotlight Columbus, an Ohio-based company, presented the Bengali-language play “Attojon.” The production centers on a middle-class household in India where caring for an aging, bedridden father exposes the fragile reality of family life. For audience members like Mita Goldar, who immigrated to the United States 40 years ago, hearing her native language on a New Jersey stage was profoundly moving.
“I’m very lucky that I can still experience these things, because when I was in India, I used to go to theaters and movies quite often,” Goldar said.
A scene from “Attojon.” (Image courtesy of Mavish Khan)
Similarly, Lights & Shadow Theatre Company presented “Whispers of a Banyan Tree,” a bilingual Hindi-English production of traditional Indian folktales.
“Many of us have heard these stories and it's just nice to relive our own childhood in many ways,” said Barkha Kishnani, the company’s founder and play’s associate director. The play concluded with a poignant reminder delivered in Hindi to the audience: “When we go away, then you have to tell these stories.”
Passion over production
The high quality of the festival’s lineup is particularly striking given that the vast majority of its participants are balancing day jobs in fields like healthcare and IT.
That raw dedication was pushed to its literal limit during a performance of the media satire “All is Well.” During the live show, actor Richa was accidentally struck in the face, causing a nosebleed. Yet, she refused to stop performing.
Das, production manager of SATF, said he did not realize the severity of the injury until he was clearing blood off the floor. “She said, ‘At one point, I thought that I would faint. But then, I look at each of your eyes, and I get the strength,’” Das said. “That is passion—that she cannot let the team down.”
Das told Richa that she carried the theater that day. She made the saying, The show must go on, true.
Mavish Khan is a corporate video producer from South Jersey. She wrote and directed her first short play for Be Bold Productions’ 14th Annual Short Play and Music Festival at The Players Theatre in NYC.
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