Multidisciplinary artist Srutika Sabu’s new work Neptune’s With a Fish will premiere as a part of Paprika Pageant on Could 14 and 17, 2025 at Native Earth’s Aki Studio in Toronto.
The present might be on stage in time for Asian Heritage Month, appropriately sufficient, because it offers with the toll that factors primarily based immigration system takes by generations, together with the parable of the Asian mannequin minority.
The Paprika Pageant is youth-led, and provides knowledgeable platform, mentorships, paid alternatives and extra to rising artists and humanities directors.
We talked to physician turned clown Srutika Sabu about Neptune’s With a Fish and extra.
Srutika Sabu, physician turned clown
Malayali-Canadian Srutika Sabu started by learning drugs, however took a detour into clowning after an existential disaster, and have become a multidisciplinary artist.
She was born in North India to folks from South India, and moved to Brampton, Ontario at age seven, the place the household stayed till she was about 15. The household subsequently moved to New Jersey. After acquiring an undergraduate diploma in biotechnology and transnational feminism at Rutgers College, she entered medical college in New York Metropolis.
However then… Srutika got here to Toronto, and commenced learning clowning.
Coaching at Candy Motion Theatre, she discovered learn how to reveal her drag king persona, Santosh Santosh — aka Tosh — a personality who starred in her 2024 Toronto Fringe present 1 Santosh Santosh 2 Go, directed by Ken Corridor (The Umbrella Academy). That present might be remounted at Upintheair Theatre’s rEvolver Pageant from Could 30-31 in Vancouver.
Srutika has carried out at Toronto Sketch Comedy Pageant, Montreal Sketchfest, and WTFestival, and he or she is the winner of the 2025 Mahendra Joshi Playwriting Competitors.
For 2025, she is a part of Paprika Pageant’s Artistic Producers Unit, in addition to Buddies in Dangerous Instances’ Rising Creators Unit, Theatre Gargantua’s Artist Roundtable, and Nightwood Theatre’s Shadow Residency in Fundraising.
Neptune’s With a Fish
The present’s premise is autobiographical — at the very least partially. Chandra is a med college grad who has been banished to a magical model of Toronto. Desires of her promising future collapse as she’s compelled to show to an unsure alliance with a speaking egg who occurs to be annoying to the intense.
It’s a musical comedy fuelled by clown vitality, a way of the absurd, and a realistically emotional foundation within the myths of South Asian exceptionalism, and way more.
Srutika Sabu is chargeable for the e book, animation, music and lyrics for the present. She performs as Chandra, with Amrutha Krishnan because the Egg.
Srutika Sabu: The Interview
“I form of grew up elsewhere,” Sabu says. She explains that her mother and father had determined to maneuver to New Jersey from Brampton through the monetary disaster of 2008.
After starting her research, she says she had a “disaster of intention”. Initially, she thought she’d take a 12 months out of med college to cope with it.
“That meant coming again to Toronto.” As she factors out, her visa solely allowed her to check within the US, however in any case, she anticipated that after a 12 months or so, she’d be again to med college.
Then, the COVID pandemic hit, and, alongside the best way, her want to check drugs waned. “I had a whole lot of time to consider what I needed to do subsequent.”
Although she’d opted for science and drugs when it got here to her research, her coronary heart had all the time been within the arts. She needed to guide a extra inventive life.
“I by no means gave myself permission to try this,” she says. “I used to be all the time an artsy child, however what I didn’t count on was to be a late bloomer theatre child.”
Sabu says she chanced on performing lessons in passing, and found the artwork of theatrical clowning.
“I used to be like what is that this?” she remembers. It was 2023. “I took my first clown class. I don’t know what saved me doing it.” Clowning integrated many features that made her uncomfortable at first, like wanting folks within the eye, and exhibiting vulnerability. “It was a real trial by fireplace.”
That’s when she got here up with drag king Santosh Santosh, and her first present. She bought a final minute spot on the Toronto Fringe, and put collectively a present in about three weeks.
“It was actually really a collaborative effort between three unemployed folks,” she says. “I spotted, I’m a performer and clown now.”
Since then, she’s branched into many alternative features of manufacturing and staging. That journey types the idea for Neptune’s With a Fish.
“[It’s] a magical, musical retelling of the previous three years,” she says, “a really winding journey,” she provides. “My mother tears her hair out on a regular basis.”
On Stage
The present is directed by Gordon Neil (Candy Motion Theatre), with Amrutha Krishnan (Mahjong Mafia Comedy).
“All of us met in a clown class,” Srutika remembers. “It’s a beautiful form of incubator house. The director of this piece is definitely one of many clown academics,” she provides. “It’s just like the theatre college I by no means had. I’ve utilizing the mentors that I’ve from these areas. It’s such a joyous course of to work with all of them.”
She calls it an all arms on deck strategy. “We’re all very new at this. We’re not conventional theatre youngsters.”
She enjoys the collaborative features of theatre making. “That’s what I really like about theatre artwork making. Clown for me may be very liberating.”
The immigration system and the fallout from it underpins the comedy, music, and absurd features of the present.
“It’s fascinating. I’m just like the product of two immigration programs,” Srutika notes. She turned a Canadian citizen after immigrating to Brampton, but additionally lived within the US for a decade as a overseas citizen.
“Even my skill to remain within the US was depending on persevering with the [medical] residency,” she explains.
Her mother and father went by the points-based immigration system in each nations. “It was predicated on the truth that each of them studied in engineering,” she says. It created a tough state of affairs the place they needed to compensate for the constraints of their comparatively weaker passports. “My sister and I, we wouldn’t have that privilege.”
Her mom’s nervousness about her occupation, and quitting med college particularly, stemmed from the truth that all the pieces that led to their North American way of life hinged on their very own occupations. Their sacrifices led to the state of affairs the place their very own youngsters had extra decisions than they did.
“It’s actual trauma that they’ve,” she says. “I’m all the time conscious of, how can I make it extra sustainable, not only for me, however for different folks,” she provides. “Making artwork shouldn’t be only for the privileged.”
Srutika says she’s not immune from her mother and father’ fears. “I do get anxious about — what am I doing?”
She says that many individuals have approached her after a present to thank her for what she’s doing and saying publicly.
“I take advantage of these tales to speak about a whole lot of that generational stuff,” she says.
“I really feel like sure tales are extra common than we expect.”
- Discover extra particulars about The Paprika Pageant, performances, and tickets, [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
