Geetha Reddy has written several plays and has been commissioned by major production houses and theatre festivals. Ranging from plays based on The Mahabharata to South Asian diaspora experiences to the retelling of British classical literature to the story of Henrietta Lacks, her plays tell many kinds of stories that are relevant to all kinds of audiences. In this exhibit, we feature two of her plays that are thematically South Asian but explore human relationships that resonate with everyone.
Cast members gather in rehearsal for the 2025 New Works Festival staged reading of The Employee Dharma Handbook. Pictured left to right: Kartic Bhargav, Geetha Reddy, Ranjita Chakravarty, Kunal Prasad, Reena Dutt, and Kathryn Smith McGlynn. Bottom row: Karen Law, Nikita Chaudhry, and Justin Buchs. Developed in a collaborative rehearsal setting, the reading brought together performers from diverse backgrounds to explore Reddy’s Silicon Valley–set drama. Through humor and tension, the play interrogates workplace bias, immigrant identity, and competing interpretations of professional and personal duty.
Presented at Flax Studios in Oakland from November 15 to December 8, 2019, this production featured J. Jha in a solo performance of Geetha Reddy’s adaptation of the ancient Indian epic Mahābhārata. Condensing one of South Asia’s most expansive mythological narratives into a single-performer format, the staging relied on physical transformation, gesture, and vocal modulation to evoke multiple characters and shifting moral landscapes. By reimagining the epic within an intimate Bay Area performance space, Reddy’s text foregrounded the enduring relevance of dharma, conflict, and kinship for contemporary diasporic audiences.
Promotional poster for the 2023 staging of Mahābhārata at Z Space in San Francisco. Written by Geetha Reddy and directed by Michael Socrates Moran, the production featured J. Jha in a solo performance encompassing multiple characters across the epic’s vast narrative landscape. Through physical transformation and embodied storytelling, Jha moved fluidly between warriors, kin, and narrators within a single theatrical frame. Presented in San Francisco’s contemporary performance venue, the work extended Reddy’s reimagining of the Sanskrit epic for Bay Area audiences.
J. Jha appears as the Itahasavid, the storyteller who guides audiences through the unfolding events of the Mahābhārata in Geetha Reddy’s 2019 staging in Oakland. Seated with minimal props, the figure introduces episodes drawn from the epic’s vast narrative of kinship, war, and moral conflict. The solo format foregrounds the act of narration itself, positioning the Itihāsavid as both witness and conduit. Within the intimate setting of Flax Studios, Reddy’s text reframed the classical Sanskrit epic as a living, performative exchange between storyteller and audience.
The cast takes their bows following the August 2025 New Works Festival staged reading at Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto. Presented before a live audience, the reading marked a key public moment in the development of Geetha Reddy’s Silicon Valley–set drama. The work examines workplace bias, corporate hierarchy, and competing interpretations of professional and personal duty within a high-pressure aerospace environment. rehearsal process to a shared public experience.
Presented at Flax Studios in Oakland from November 15 to December 8, 2019, this staging of Mahābhārata featured J. Jha as the Itahasavid, a solitary storyteller who guides audiences through the epic’s moral and familial conflicts. Written by Geetha Reddy, the production distilled the vast Sanskrit narrative into an intimate solo performance. Through physical transformation and vocal modulation, Jha embodied multiple figures across generations of war, kinship, and duty. Positioned within a contemporary Bay Area performance space, the work reframed the classical epic as a living, diasporic act of storytelling.
J. Jha portrays Sanjay, the clairvoyant narrator of the Mahābhārata, in Geetha Reddy’s 2019 Oakland staging at Flax Studios. In the epic, Sanjay recounts the events of the Kurukshetra war to the blind king Dhritarashtra, serving as witness and interpreter of unfolding catastrophe. Within this solo production, Jha moved fluidly between Sanjay and other figures, embodying the layered structure of epic narration. The performance foregrounded storytelling as transmission, positioning the ancient Sanskrit text within an intimate contemporary Bay Area performance space.
Cast members pose during rehearsal for the 2025 New Works Festival staged reading of The Employee Dharma Handbook. Developed in TheatreWorks’ Redwood City rehearsal space, the ensemble collaborated to shape the rhythm, tone, and interpersonal dynamics of Reddy’s workplace drama. Set within a high-pressure aerospace company, the play explores promotion, bias, and the layered hierarchies that structure corporate life in Silicon Valley. Through rehearsal, performers navigated questions of immigrant identity, gender politics, and ethical responsibility, foregrounding the concept of dharma as both a philosophical and professional framework.
Cast members pose during rehearsal for the 2025 New Works Festival staged reading of The Employee Dharma Handbook. Developed in TheatreWorks’ Redwood City rehearsal space, the ensemble collaborated to shape the rhythm, tone, and interpersonal dynamics of Reddy’s workplace drama. Set within a high-pressure aerospace company, the play explores promotion, bias, and the layered hierarchies that structure corporate life in Silicon Valley. Through rehearsal, performers navigated questions of immigrant identity, gender politics, and ethical responsibility, foregrounding the concept of dharma as both a philosophical and professional framework.
Promotional graphic created for the staged reading of The Employee Dharma Handbook at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s 2025 New Works Festival. Set at a Silicon Valley aerospace company on the brink of a major rocket launch, the play follows Val, an HR executive who suspects that Leela, a young Indian American engineer, has been denied a promotion due to bias. As corporate leadership navigates pressure, loyalty, and reputation, questions of sexism, hierarchy, and immigrant identity surface. Drawing on the concept of dharma, the work interrogates competing obligations to self, community, and institution within contemporary tech culture.
