Flood Sensor Aunty is a play, that I wrote and directed, about a flood sensor working at her aunt’s chai shop who really wants to be a movie star. Halfway between really funny devised theater and culturally competent community disaster prevention for South Asian/Indo Caribbean communities, this show is about how the best way to protect yourself from flooding, climate change, and despair is through knowing your neighbors. In partnership with NYC Emergency Management, audiences leave nourished with bellies full of free oat milk chai, laughs, flood protection resources like flood alarms and headlamps, and calls to action. Check out robust coverage on Grist, Spectrum NY1, the CITY (!!!), the Queens Knight, Streetbeat, SI Live, WaterWire, and more.
All the uncles at the Elmhurst Public Library loved watching us do this bit over the fence (September 2025)
After ten perfect performances in September 2024 and April 2025, we’re returning (with more characters, like a flood god uncle, live musician, and new community organizers) for four more performances in NYC and two performances in Massachusetts - supported by existing and new partners like the NYC Health Department, the Waterfront Alliance, Chhaya CDC, NYC EDC, APICHA Edgemere Farm Works, the Boston Office of Emergency Management, the Boston Office of Climate Resiliency, the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, Rockaway Revolution, WE-ACT for Environmental Justice, Wellesley Repertory Theater, Fordham University, the Queens Memory Project, and more. Stay tuned for updates - but if you’re reading this - RSVP for free tickets here!
We performed on a boat (A BOAT), featuring a new monologue from NYCEM bureaucrat Jill Cornell!
This show was created with help from a team of almost thirty community organizers, bureaucrats, live musicians, performers, devisers (partly performers with deep experience in movement and theater work and partly community organizers working and living in the neighborhoods we’re performing), designers, and more. After each performance, there is a structured (by which I mean scripted) talkback featuring a climate communications celebrity helping us host and give a call to action: Eugene Massey and Haydr Dutta from NYC Health Department (Fordham, Elmhurst, and Edgemere), Jordana Vanderselt and Giana Folz from WE-ACT for Environmental Justice (Fordham), Mahrin Afsari from Chhaya CDC (Elmhurst), Kenji Jones from APICHA (Elmhurst), Marva Kerwin and Kate Walls from Rockaway Revolution (Edgemere), Furhana Husani from the Waterfront Alliance (Seaport), Catherine McCandless from the Boston Office of Climate Resiliency (Wellesley), Ky’Ron Owens from the Boston Office of Emergency Management (Wellesley), Lani Asuncion from Pao Arts (Wellesley), Jake Meakem from Harbor Arts Now (Wellesley) and Marybeth Martorello from the Town of Wellesley Office of Sustainability (Wellesley). Phew!!!!!!!!!
