The Cherry Orchard

Directed by Sathish Sattanathan

Mar 12-19, 2022

Sunnyvale Theater

550 E Remington Dr, Sunnyvale

The Cherry Orchard is one of the world’s best known plays and the last play that Anton Chekhov wrote. It is a story about an aristocratic family caught in the throes of social change in the aftermath of the Russian Emancipation, which freed its serfs. Our adaptation takes us to rural Kerala in the 80s, when the old order of jenmis (landed aristocracy) was crumbling after land reforms by the state.

Banumathi Thampuratti returns to her estate and her family in rural Kerala after a long absence. The estate, burdened by unpaid loans, is about to be auctioned off. Sidharthan, a local politician who is a well-wisher of the family, offers a solution. Will Banumathi and her family read the writing on the wall and do the unthinkable to avert the auction?

English | Ages 12+ | 130m including intermission

For the safety of our patrons, entry to all performances will require proof of vaccination. Please read our Covid Protocol before buying tickets.

Students get a 20% discount. Use OURSTUDENT during checkout (cannot be combined with other discounts). Students must show their student ID at the theatre.

Thanks to our sponsor donor

Amal Tamara Ayurveda Resort, Mannanchery Kerala.

Anirudh Mohan (AYAPPAN)

Anirudh is delighted to be returning for a fifth time to BADCo having previously played Kunaal in Girish Karnad’s Boiled Beans on Toast, Zohrab in Rahul Varma’s State of Denial, Basab Pradhan’s Divided By and the ensemble show of short plays Our Stories. He has studied acting at San Francisco State University and was part of a Shakespeare Troupe that toured multiple high schools around San Francisco. He played Norik/Haro in the production of Without Clouds from NOID inc. He has also contributed to a number of roles in independent plays and short films around the Bay Area. Apart from acting, Anirudh enjoys watching movies, reading novels, playing volleyball and supporting his favorite teams – the Golden State Warriors and Manchester United.

Chaitasi Majmudar (SETHU LAKSHMI)

Chaitasi (Chai) is making her debut with The Cherry Orchard. Prior to this she stage managed BADCo’s Our Stories which was her first step in the world of theatre. She found it exciting and deeply fulfilling and auditioned for the next show.

Dilip Ratnam (PANICKER)

Dilip has been part of several Bay Area productions both on and off stage with many South Asian theater groups. This is his third outing with BADCo after essaying the diabolic uncle in 30 Days of September and multiple roles in the ensemble collection of short plays, Our Stories. His previous performances included portraying multiple characters in the musical Gandhi, the grieving husband in A Waiting Room and the bumbling Vinit in an adaptation of The Odd Couple. A self-proclaimed movie buff, he loves to sing and dance to any beat, especially Bollywood music.

Kavitha Nagarajan (MARIYAM)

Kavitha enjoys being on stage and has had the good fortune of exploring the medium as singer and actor in various stage shows in and around the Bay Area. She has had the opportunity to essay a range of roles in various Tamil and Hindi plays - the endearing RajaMatha in Swaram's Once Upon a Time, the vengeful protagonist Durga in Avatar's Mudivalla Arambam, the ever-worrying mother of the heroine in Mission Suhani, a Nautanki style musical being some of them. Kavitha is also a versatile vocalist, trained in Indian classical music and has many music albums to her credit. She is a founding member of Bay Area based  Indian music band Thillana. She lent her voice to the movie Nanjupuram that was released all across Tamil Nadu in the year 2011. 

This is Kavitha’s second outing with Bay Area Drama Company after Our Stories.

Lakshmi Bharadwaj (NANDINI VARMA)

Lakshmi is an actor and writer. This is her third outing for BADCo after Dance Like A Man and The Wedding Album. Lakshmi has also been active in Kannada theatre and has many short and feature films to her credit. Her most recent feature film was Gatham (Telugu) which was released in 2020. Lakshmi spent a year training and honing her skills in classical theatre & traditional dance-drama styles of the Yakshagana artform under the tutelage of Prasad Cherkady. When not on the stage, Lakshmi is busy studying for a Masters in Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

Nitin Deo (BALAKRISHNAN MENON)

Nitin is a techie during the day, but an artist after work! He has been acting in plays since high school in Pune, India where he won awards in inter-school competitions. In the US over the past three decades he has played many roles in Marathi, Hindi and English plays. He is in a feature film now showing on Netflix (Family Party), a short film (Love by chance) and a Pepsi commercial (Pepsi Pinball) shown globally. He is also the published author of Colors of Glory now selling on Amazon. He is also a West Indies board certified International Cricket Umpire! Every once in a while he tries to hit it out of the park - but gets clean bowled!

Ram Rajagopalan (SREEKUMAR VARMA)

Ram has a great passion for theater. This is his third stage appearance after Naatak's Buddha and BADCo’s Our Stories.

Shiva Kannan (KURUPPU)

Shiva is excited to be making his theatre debut with BADCo. He is really passionate about acting and wants to learn and get better at it. He has done a small role in a YouTube web series called Not So Pink. An avid movie buff, Shiva spends a lot of his free time watching movies and TV shows.

Tannistha Mukherjee (GOWRI)

Tannistha is an actor and a dancer. The Cherry Orchard is her third production with BADCo after playing the lead role of Chhavi in Basab Pradhan’s Divided By and roles in Our Stories in December 2021. Some of her other prominent roles in the Bay Area include Draupadi in Mahabharat, Nazneen in the Indian adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace and Tara in Tanika Gupta’s Waiting Room. She has trained in acting, movement, voice, and clowning at the American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco.

Vandana Ramakrishnan Nathan (BANUMATHI THAMPURATTI)

Vandana’s performing arts experience started at the age of six and continued through school and college. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and dabbles in other dance genres too. She is passionate about theater and feels fortunate to have had the opportunity to essay a wide variety of roles. She has done short films as well. This is her second outing with BADCo after Our Stories, and she is excited about working with this talented crew. She loves cooking, dancing, singing, hiking and of course, acting.

Varun Arvind (PRABHAKARAN)

Varun Arvind is a writer and actor based out of the Bay Area. He started acting in his freshman year of college and started writing not long after that. They’ve both become great passions of his. This will be his third opportunity to work with Bay Area Drama Company.

Vineet Kumar (SIDHARTHAN)

Vineet Kumar moved to the Bay Area in 2020 from Singapore. He heads a fast growing company  by day and moonlights as a theatre actor by night. He has been involved with stage theatre in Singapore and Bangkok in both English and Hindi and this would be his second play with BADCo after Our Stories.

Director

Sathish Sattanathan

Sathish Sattanathan is a theater enthusiast keenly interested in all aspects of theater. He has acted in many Tamil and English plays with prominent Bay Area theater groups. He debuted with BADCo as Mohan Hattangadi in Girish Karnad’s Wedding Album. The Cherry Orchard is his second time directing for BADCo after Our Stories (Tamil).

Stage Manager

Michelle Singh

After Not Equal To, Greater Than and Divided By, this is Michelle’s fourth time stage managing a mainstream show for BADCo. She has worked at various theatres in the Bay Area over the last 20 years. Most recently at City Lights Theater Company with such favorites as Alabama Story, Ideation, Elephant Man, Amadeus, Dead Man Walking, and Compleate Female Stage Beauty. Other favorite productions around the south bay include Matthew Briar and the Age of Resurrection (Epic Immersive),  A Midsumer Night's Dream (Silicon Valley Shakespeare), Carmen (Opera San Jose), and On the Verge (Bus Barn Stage Co.). Michelle has an MBA from University of Phoenix, and a BA in Technical Theatre from U.C. Santa Barbara, and is the author of "A Stage Manager's Survival Guide: From Callbacks to Closing."

Michelle is the Stage and Production Manager for BADCo. When not backstage, she can be found in the online advertising world at Adobe. 

Producer

Vaishnavi Sridhar

Vaishnavi discovered her love for the stage in 11th grade, when she realized this was the one place where she could overcome her innate shyness. She enjoys participating in substantive theater and films with themes of social justice, women’s empowerment, family drama and comedy. Apart from theater and film, Vaishnavi enjoys reading, writing, gardening, cooking and watching movies with her two sons.

Vaishnavi has acted in several Tamil, Telugu and English plays with various Bay Area theater groups. Her stage debut with Bay Area Drama Company was in a memorable role as Radhabai in The Wedding Album. She also essayed the role of Anusuya in Girish Karnad’s Boiled Beans on Toast. COVID 19’s birthing of the Zoom theater phenomenon enabled Vaishnavi to also act as the titular character in Bay Area Drama Company’s Evil Eye, as well as a video production of Sindu Singh’s short play Suprabhatam and in several more Zoom plays. Her most recent performances, both in English and in Tamil, were part of BAD Co’s latest production, Our Stories. She has also acted in a few short films and a feature film in Telugu, Tamil and English.

Vaishnavi is a member of the leadership team of BADCo.

Music

Sruti Sarathy

Sruti Sarathy is a versatile Carnatic violinist and vocalist based in Chennai and the Bay Area. Her music brings out the voice of the Indian violin in a contemporary and imaginative way. A Fulbright Scholar and graduate of Stanford University, Sruti collaborates with Indian classical musicians in festivals across the world. She received the "Best Violinist" award from the Madras Music Academy in 2019 and 2020, and she regularly composes and performs music for dance and theater works.

Sruti has composed the music for The Square Root of a Sonnet, two Zoom productions and an audio play for BADCo.