Remix A Christmas Carol as a Diwali story

Mohana Rajakumar is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

We are super excited to share our next project!

You might remember the cautionary tale of Ebenezer Scrooge - a miserly old man visited by spirits who take him through a series of flashbacks as dire warnings of how he was wasting his life. Told by Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol, this is a story for the ages.

This Christmas classic has been told and retold many times and in our version it gets a modern update with a feminine + cultural twist with Mala, an Indian American woman, grappling with her impending life of drudgery. You might remember Mala as the plucky protagonist who started college with high hopes in our previous production, Me Against the World.

Well.. she hasn't made the best choices since then.

We are super excited to have Priya Pappu returning to reprise the role of Mala.

Priya Pappu was born and raised in Santa Clara, California, the fifth child of proud immigrants from Finland and India. Priya's love of theater started at an early age, only matched by her success athletically. In 2009, Priya moved to Nashville, TN, to attend Lipscomb University on a cross-country and track scholarship. She graduated in 2013 with a degree in Business Marketing and a minor in journalism. After keeping her acting dream alive with regional commercial, industrial, and film/TV work since 2012, Priya left a job in tech in 2019 to pursue acting and writing fulltime. Since then, she has worked with brands like Fritos, Rocket Mortgage, Dollar General, and The Escape Game, on TV in ESPN+'s Bettor Days and in independent shorts Me Against the World, Rayleigh Scattering, and Tinderella, which she also wrote. A true California girl at heart, Priya relocated to Los Angeles in March 2023. She feels very fortunate to be pursuing a career that is the culmination of a lifetime of entertaining and dreaming.

Lucky for Mala, the spirits of 3 important female mentors from her past come to visit on the 3rd night of #diwali, the Festival of Lights, to help get her out of her rut.

First, her grandmother, or Paati in Tamil, played by Priya Deva

Priya Deva is an Indian Canadian actor, singer, and producer. On camera, she can be seen in films, commercials, industrials, and print work. Most recently, Deva played the role of the saucy adulteress Uma Singh in the feature film India Sweets and Spices. She is also known for her villainous roles in Cost to Life and Retain. Classically trained, Deva has performed in dozens of theater productions, with leading roles in dramas, comedies, and musicals such as A Few Good Men, Rumors, West Side Story, and Chicago. Deva is a multilingual actor and singer who has performed in Telugu, Hindi, French and Italian. Deva resides in Texas with her husband and children.

Then it's her college mentor, Jean, played by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

Mohana has been a storyteller for a long time from writing award-winning novels to standup comedy. In her work, audiences experience what it means to be brown and female in a supposedly post racial era. She is actually playing a character inspired by her own college mentor who recently passed away.

And, of course, we need a toxic boss, Scrooge, who gets an update from Ruth Kaufman.

Her credits include features and short films, web series, national commercials and videos for The Onion, as well as She Hulk on Disney. Her thousands of voiceovers include e-learning courses, medical narrations, commercials and assorted characters. She’s performed with improv teams and at numerous corporate events.

Other people also try to jar Mala from her corporate slumber including her college friend, and love interest, Manoj played by Levin Valayil

An actor, singer, musician who played Aladdin in “The Descendants 5: Rise of Red” movie for Disney+ (summer 2024). He has won numerous awards from the London Independent Film awards to the Big Apple Film Festival and Screenplay Competition for his work in the movie “Click Next to Continue”. He is a theater actor with credits from The Alley Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, Williamstown Theater Festival, Asolo Rep, and The Cape Playhouse.

There's a lot at stake for other people in Mala's life, including her younger sister, Urmila, played by Nishta Boys.

And no office would be complete without a few well intentioned, but clueless CoWorkers.

Our supporting cast have an impressive credits list including feature films such as Sleepy Hollow, Creed III and winning regional Emmy awards.