House of Joy

2019 Past Production — See our 2020 Season!

reviews

“…reminds one of the cheeky badass vibe of ‘Black Panther.’”

— Karen D'Souza, Bay Area News Group

“immensely funny”

— Lou Fancher, East Bay Express

“Glimmering adventure story.”

— Emily Mendel, Berkeleyside

NEW CLASSICS PREMIERE

RUN TIME: Approx. 2 hours

INTERMISSION: One 15 minute

TYPE: Comedy, Action-adventure, Romance

GROVE TALKS: 45 mins pre-show

WARNINGS: References to domestic violence, on stage fighting, sexual innuendo, some strong language, and some flashing lights (no strobe).

Paradise isn't all it's cracked up to be.

House of Joy
by Madhuri Shekar
directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian
August 14-September 1

A darling of the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, House of Joy is an action-adventure romance set in a harem at the beginning of the end of the Mughal Empire. Once upon a time and place, in something like 17th century Delhi, an imperial bodyguard risks her life to fight for what’s right, turning against everything she’s been raised to believe.

House of Joy was developed at the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, a program of the Playwrights Foundation, Amy L. Mueller, Artistic Director.

cast

Rotimi Agbabiaka

(Salima) Rotimi returns to Cal Shakes after playing Asagai in Raisin In The Sun. He most recently performed Off Broadway in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons). Recent credits: Yale Rep, A.C.T., Magic, Shotgun Players, Brava (Bootycandy, TBA award), San Francisco Mime Troupe. His solo plays include Homeless (Best of SF Fringe) and Type/Caste (TBA award) and he co-wrote the musical, Seeing Red. www.rotimionline.com

Raji Ahsan

(Thermometer) Grad: NYU/Tisch '13. Theater: Enter Laughing (York, NYC), Peter & the Starcatcher (Argyle), Disgraced (Cape Fear Regional & Shadowland Stages), My Heart is in the East (LaMaMa), Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Asolo Rep. & Miami New Drama), Baskerville (Dorset); TV/Film: “High Maintenance,” HBO; host: "Making Brews & Paying Dues" (YouTube). (he/him) @rajiahsan / rajiahsan.com

Rinabeth Apostol

(Mariyam) Rinabeth is thrilled to make her Cal Shakes debut. Recent projects: Vietgone (Capital Stage), King of The Yees (SF Playhouse), A Thousand Splendid Suns (Seattle Rep, ACT); Two Mile Hollow (Ferocious Lotus); and we, the invisibles (Humana Festival, ATL). Her work has also been seen at TheatreWorks, MTC, A.C.T., Magic Theatre, B Street Theatre, San Jose Rep, Berkeley Rep, Playwrights Foundation, Crowded Fire, and Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, among others.(she/her) www.rinabeth.com

Lipica Shah

(Noorah) Lipica is an NYC-based actor/singer/voice actor who thrives on collaboration and has a passion for new play development. She’s ecstatic for her Cal Shakes debut! She recently closed Heartland (Luna Stage) and India Pale Ale (MTC). Catch her next in Testmatch at A.C.T. and in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin on Toonami! (she/her) www.LipicaShah.com

Emma Van Lare

(Hamida) Emma is thrilled to be making her professional theater debut at Cal Shakes with the world premiere of House of Joy. What a way to kick off her third and final year as a MFA candidate at the American Conservatory Theater! Previous credits include, a rousing turn as Medea earlier this year and the small but mighty Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream. She thanks her amazing parents for not getting mad when she said she wasn’t going to business school! (she/her)

Nandita Shenoy

(Gulal) Nandita Shenoy is an actor-writer in New York City, most recently seen in Chelsea Marcantel’s Tiny Houses at Cleveland Play House. She starred in the Off-Broadway production of her own play Washer/Dryer and has originated roles in World Premiers of plays by Adam Szymkowicz, Eric Pfeffinger, and Richard Dresser. Member: Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity, and SAG/AFTRA. BA, English, Yale University. (she/her) www.nanditashenoy.com

Sango Tajima

(Roshni)Sango Tajima is an Oakland-based artist happy to be making her Cal Shakes debut. Recent credits include Metamorphoses (Berkeley Rep & Guthrie Theater); Women Laughing Alone with Salad (Shotgun Players); In Braunau (SF Playhouse Sandbox Series); The Wolves, Shakespeare in Love, The Jungle Book (Marin Theatre Company). OTHER Member of The Bonfire Makers, a political theater collective. TRAINING B.F.A., University of Michigan (she/her)

Creative

Madhuri Shekar

(Playwright) Madhuri’s plays have been produced internationally and across the U.S., and she is thrilled for House of Joy to have its world premiere at Cal Shakes. Her other plays include In Love and Warcraft, A Nice Indian Boy, Queen, Bucket of Blessings and Dhaba on Devon Avenue (premiering at Victory Gardens next spring. Her first audio play Evil Eye is available now on Audible.com, and debuted on their best-seller list in May 2019. She is an alumna of the Juilliard playwriting program, and a staff writer for the new HBO show The Nevers, created by Joss Whedon. (she/her) @madplays

WRITER

Megan Sandberg-Zakian

(Director) Megan is a freelance director based in Jamaica Plain, MA, and a co-founder of Maia Directors, a consulting group for artists and organizations engaging with stories from the Middle East and beyond. Recent favorite world premieres: Nathan Alan Davis’ Nat Turner in Jerusalem (New York Theatre Workshop), Eleanor Burgess’ Chill (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), Madhuri Shekar’s Evil Eye (Audible Originals). (she/her) megansz.com, maiadirectors.com

DIRECTOR

Lawrence E. Moten III

(Scenic Designer) [B’way/Tour] What the Constitution Means to Me (Assoc.) Hadestown (Asst.) Anastasia (Asst.) [Off-Broadway] Behind the Sheet (Ensemble Studio Theatre); I Was Most Alive With You, A Strange Loop (Assoc. Playwrights Horizons) [New York] De Novo (Houses on The Moon); Lysistrata, Language of Angels (New School for Drama). Lecturer of Theatre: Princeton University. Visiting Professor of Design: Dartmouth College. BFA Ithaca College. Motendesigns.com

Oana Botez

(Costume Designer) LCT: In the Green, Bull in a China Shop, Luck of the Irish (LCT3). Off-Broadway: Pearl; Hamlet, Richard II, Richard III, An Oresteia, The Tempest (CSC); Love's Labour's Lost (The Public); Love in the Wars, Master and Margarita (Bard Summerscape); A House in Bali, texts&beheadings/ElizabethR, Alan Smithee Directed This Play, Supernatural Wife (BAM). Regional: Macbeth (Old Globe); In The Next Room or the vibrator play; Angels in America I & II (Wilma); Man in a Case (Hartford).

Vidhu Singh

(Dramaturg) Vidhu Singh holds an MA in Dramatic Art from UC Santa Barbara and a PhD in Asian Theatre from UH Manoa. As founder of RasaNova Theater, she has brought bold new plays from across the world to the Bay Area and engages local audiences with diverse storytelling. A graduate of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Vidhu is a founding member of World Wide Lab—an international directors’ collective, a resident artist at Brava Theater, and core member of Theatre without Borders. (she/her)

Leslie M. Radin

(Stage Manager) Leslie (she/her) is delighted to return to Cal Shakes after stage managing Fences in 2016. She has also worked at A.C.T., Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Center Rep, and Santa Cruz Shakespeare. She traveled with Berkeley Rep productions to the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the New Victory Theater in New York. Her favorite past productions include Angels in America, Aubergine, Wittenberg, Sisters Matsumoto, The Great Leap, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), and The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

Wen-Ling Liao

(Lighting Designer) at Cal Shakes: Quixote Nuevo. Other selected credits: Vietgone (A.C.T), Reel to Reel (Magic Theater), Barbecue (San Francisco Playhouse), The Boy Who Danced on Air (Abingdon Theater Company), Chill (Merrimack Repertory Theater), Milk Like Sugar (Huntington Theatre Company), Sense and Sensibility (Dallas Theater Center). She earned her MFA from the University of California, San Diego and BA from National Taiwan University. Website: wenlingliao.com

Cherie Corinne Rice

(Vocal Coach) Cherie Corinne Rice is an actor/voice teacher/private coach based in New York City. Rice is the Head of Voice and Speech at the Professional Performing Arts School and recently joined the Graduate Acting Program faculty at Columbia University. She has dialect directed productions for Audible.com, Huntington Theater Company, Lyric Stage Company and NYC Fridge Festival. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, UC Berkeley Theater and Performance Studies.

Laxmi Kumaran

Assistant Stage Manager) Laxmi is enjoying her ninth season at Cal Shakes. Some of the directors with whom she has had the pleasure of working include Patricia McGregor, Liesl Tommy, Joel Sass, Jonathan Moscone, Christopher Liam Moore, Timothy Near, Amy Glazer, Kirsten Brandt, Barbara Damashek, Michael Butler, Robert Falls, Mary Zimmerman, David Ira Goldstein, JoAnne Akalaitis, Robert Woodruff, Karin Coonrod, Gary Griffin, and David Cromer.

Arshan Gailus

(Original Music & Sound Design) Arshan’s music and soundscapes have been heard at ArtsEmerson, The Huntington Theatre Company, Shakespeare & Company, The Guthrie, Capital Rep, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, A.R.T Institute, The Lyric Stage Company, New Repertory Theater, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Harvard, Brandeis, The Nora Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, The Gloucester Stage Company, and Company One. B.S. in Music from MIT. (he/him) www.arshangailus.com

Dave Maier

(Resident Fight Director) Dave is in his 14th season as the resident fight director with Cal Shakes. His work has been seen at ACT, Berkeley Rep, Aurora Theatre, SF Playhouse, Berkeley Playhouse, Center Rep, Marin Theatre, and Shotgun Players. 2018 TBA award: outstanding fight choreography, Quixote Nuevo. Master Fight Director and Senior Instructor with Dueling Arts International.

Julia Formanek

(Production Assistant) Julia (she/her) is excited to return to Cal Shakes for her second season where she previously worked on Everybody and As You Like It. Her other regional credits include Wink, Jazz, The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, Oslo (Marin Theatre Company), Widower’s Houses (Aurora), The Obligation (Potrero Stage), and Measure for Measure (Santa Cruz Shakespeare.) She graduated from Beloit College with a BA in Theatre Production.

House of Joy Program

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