About
b. 1986, HK.
Covered in green paint on Rockaway Beach for (fun and) A Fun Play About How Scary Climate Change Is , for the Amanda+James Coastlines Festival (Summer 2023).
TLDR: Public theater artist, community organizer, and urban planner dedicated to telling funny stories about our changing climate, recently covered in Hyperallergic (!!!). Click here to RSVP to Flood Sensor Aunty; a show I wrote and directed about how the best way to protect yourself from flooding, climate change, and despair is through knowing your neighbors. Halfway between funny play about a flood sensor who really wants to be a movie star and community disaster preparedness, you’ll leave nourished with a belly full of chai, laughs, disaster preparedness materials, and calls to action, thanks to partnership from NYC Emergency Management, NYSCA, and more!
My favorite moment I’ve ever blocked, from Merhnaz Tiv’s I AM MALALA play for the Good Apple Collective’s Rootstock Readings festival. Photo by Jesse Herendon.
I have a background in climate planning, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat through (or organized!) boring multi-hour workshops about climate change and resiliency. Instead, I see public theater as an exciting strategy for meeting people where they’re at (with resources and information and systemic calls to action), while also having fun! My proudest credentialing (scroll through my site for more conventional credentialing tho) is writing and directing public programming in open spaces in every corner of my city: Hunts Point Riverside Park, Traver’s Park, Queens Botanical Garden, Qahwah House Astoria, Washington Square Park, Newkirk Open Street, La Plaza Cultural, Lt. Frank McConnell Park, Rockaway Beach, the Astoria Food Pantry, Gowanus Dredgers Community Boathouse, PYO Chai, Edgemere Farm, Rockaway Community Park, 31st Avenue Open Street, PS Family NYC, and more if you let me!
Scroll through my website for an exhaustive list (brag brag brag) of past projects, but I’ll highlight Rainy Day Play, a devised piece that I directed and co-wrote as an Artist in Residence at NYU Flood Net Center and brought to three waterfront community spaces; Lunch Break, a collaborative protest performance that I wrote and directed for Make the Road with worker-organizers from DRUM, Local 79, and the Street Vendor Project for their May Day Rally; and A Fun Play about how Scary Climate Change is, a devised piece that I wrote and directed and took to six waterfront spaces and the Queens Botanical Garden’s 2024 Climate Art Festival.
Playing an evil clown (author insert?!) in Pistachio + the Worms on 31st Avenue Open Street’s Earth Day celebration.
I’m the co-founder and artistic director of Fresh Lime Soda Productions, a contemporary South Asian political theater ensemble and incubator, an inaugural member of the Tank’s Writer-Director group (TAG), the Motor Company’s Writing Circle, and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition’s Theater of Change workshop. Feel free to peruse this (overly detailed but always under construction) website for more (self-indulgent) parentheticals or send a signal: unnisabina@gmail.com. ✺✺✺