7.6.25

The Event

How much would you sell of yourself to survive?

In a near-future India, a struggling family makes a desperate deal to sell their organs to wealthy foreign buyers, plunging them into a chilling world where their very bodies are no longer their own.

Harvest by Manjula Padmanabhan is a haunting exploration of the moral and emotional toll of exploitation, weaving a tense, dystopian narrative that questions what it means to survive in a fractured world.

Experience this gripping story firsthand at our special reading on July 6th. Don’t miss the chance to engage with a play that dares to challenge the boundaries of ethics, humanity, and power in our globalized age.

  • Doors open at 6:30 for free snacks and wine

  • Reading starts promptly at 7:00

  • Tickets are pay-what-you-can ($5 minimum)

  • Students get in free with student ID

  • Free for Play of the Month Club members

    • (info at the link below)

EVENT INFO:

GETTING THERE + PARKING:

  • Street parking is free on Sunday

  • There is an underground garage located at 1110 N. Western ($8 after 5 p.m.)

 

The Players

Analisa Gutierrez
MRS. LINDEN

Andrea Ramos
NORA HELMER

Jordan Becker
DR. RANK

Kareem Ghaleb
TORVALD HELMER

David-Edward Reyes
NILS KROGSTAD

Diane Witter
ANNA/ELLEN

coming soon…

Tai Nelson
READER

The Play

Harvest by Manjula Padmanabhan is a chilling and incisive exploration of a dystopian world where the human body becomes a commodity in a global marketplace. The play follows Om Prakash, a young man from a poor Indian family, who signs up with InterPlanta, a multinational corporation that purchases organs for wealthy Western clients. In exchange, his family is provided with an apartment, food, and amenities—luxuries otherwise unimaginable in their impoverished life. However, this apparent blessing quickly turns sinister as InterPlanta imposes surveillance and control over their lives, stripping them of autonomy in exchange for survival.

The play offers a scathing critique of global capitalism, postcolonial exploitation, and the commodification of human lives. The Western client, represented only as a disembodied voice and occasional video projection, highlights the dehumanizing nature of this system. The power dynamics at play expose how the wealth and privilege of one world thrive at the expense of another’s suffering. As the story unfolds, the Prakash family fractures under the psychological and physical toll of their "deal," revealing how such exploitative systems infiltrate the most intimate spaces of life.

Through its dark humor and stark imagery, Harvest challenges audiences to confront uncomfortable questions: How much of our humanity are we willing to trade for material security? What does it mean to resist a system that leaves no part of life untouched? With its bold themes and evocative staging, the play is a powerful reminder of theatre’s ability to reflect and critique societal injustices, offering both a mirror to our world and a rallying cry for change.

The Playwright

Manjula Padmanabhan (b. June  23,  1953, Delhi) is a celebrated Indian playwright, novelist, artist, cartoonist, and journalist. Raised across Sweden, Pakistan, and Thailand, she returned to India as a teen and later graduated from Elphinstone College in Mumbai. Early in her career, she achieved recognition as a satirical cartoonist with strips like Doubletalk and Suki, featured in The Sunday Observer and The Pioneer. Writing across genres—including children’s books, short fiction, and graphic novels—she consistently examines themes of identity, inequality, technology, and gender.

Padmanabhan rose to international prominence in 1997 when Harvest—a daring dystopian drama about organ trafficking—earned her the inaugural Onassis Prize for Theatre, chosen from over 1,500 entries across 75 countries. The play’s dark humor and searing critique of global capitalism and postcolonial exploitation have well secured her legacy as a fearless dramatist—unafraid to challenge power and expose systemic injustice.

In recent years, Padmanabhan has continued to push creative boundaries. In November 2023, she released Stolen Hours and Other Curiosities, an anthology of 25 science-fiction stories spanning four decades, reaffirming her stature as a pioneer of South Asian speculative fiction. Dividing her time between Newport, Rhode Island, and New Delhi, she remains highly productive—writing, illustrating, and showcasing new visual art, including kinetic paper sculptures. Her 2022 solo exhibition Knots and Crosses in Chennai marked her return to the Indian gallery scene after 11 years. Padmanabhan's novel Taxi, exploring the life of a female cab driver in New Delhi, won the prestigious Sushila Devi Award for Women’s Fiction in early 2024. She is currently preparing a two-volume collection of her plays and reviving her beloved comic strip Suki, which is being compiled into new editions.