ELYRIA at Atlantic Theater Company

Atlantic Theater Company has announced casting for the world premiere production of Elyria, written by Deepa Purohit(Off-Broadway playwriting debut), and directed by Awoye Timpo (The Homecoming Queen).

Elyria will feature Sanskar Agarwal (Off-Broadway debut), Nilanjana Bose (Tamburlaine the Great), Sanjit De Silva (War Horse), Mohit Gautam (Off-Broadway debut), Gulshan Mia (Acquittal), Bhavesh Patel (The Nap), Mahima Saigal (Off-Broadway debut), Khyati Sehgal (Off-Broadway debut), and Omar Shafiuzzaman (Off-Broadway Debut).

Elyria will begin performances on Thursday, February 9th, and will open Monday, February 27th, for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 19th, 2023 Off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20th Street).

1982. Elyria, Ohio: Two women collide 20 years, 3 continents, and 2 oceans after making a deal of a lifetime, forcing them to face the knots of the past and the uncertainty of their inextricably linked future.

Elyria will feature choreography by Parijat Desai, scenic design by Jason Ardizzone-West, costume design by Sarita Fellows, lighting design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, sound design by Amatus Karim Ali, projections by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, and casting by The Telsey Office; Will Cantler, CSA; Karyn Casl, CSA, Destiny Lily, CSA. Kat Meister will serve as the production stage manager.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/Cast-Announced-for-World-Premiere-of-ELYRIA-at-Atlantic-Theater-Company-20230109

I really liked this too! I am never a hard customer to please though because I just love live theater, but this was fun! They started us all out doing traditional dances, of which I can’t remember sadly, which brought my mood up. You could take off your shoes and join them on stage which really made me feel at home with the production.


This is a story that I think is really important. This is not just a play about South Asian culture. It is also a part of another American culture. I have never seen something like this brought on the stage before and I think that people need to see it.


I will say that I did think it was a tad bit long. It was 2 hours and 40 minutes long. I thought that some scenes could have been cutdown and some expanded. I really wish that we had seen more of the two women’s relationship because I loved their dynamic so much. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I thought all of the people in it were tremendous. Another note; this is a bit of a black box situation with two rows of seats on every other side of the stage. I would not recommend sitting in the seats facing the opposite way of the rest. There are a lot of scenes where they face the main audience or they have things going on a perch on the wall. So you’ll either see back of heads or you’ll have to turn completely around in your seat to see something going on behind you.


I didn’t sit there so I didn’t miss anything, but I could see how some might not like missing things because of that.