Welcome to Season 26! 

As we curated Season 26, we asked ourselves, “What makes a play Curious?”

As one way to answer, we challenged ourselves to choose plays that would amaze, delight, and invigorate our audiences and artists alike. Curious believes in stepping into uncharted territory, and we are so happy you are joining us as we continue this journey with Letters of Suresh.

Letters of Suresh by Rajiv Joseph unfolds as a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the intricate tapestry of human connections. Set against a backdrop that spans continents and decades, the play intricately weaves together the lives of its characters through a series of letters. Joseph’s masterful storytelling will invite you, the audience, into a world where the written word becomes a vessel for unspoken emotions, traversing the realms of longing, hope, and the enduring power of relationships. 

We hope this captivating narrative that transcends time and borders, will leave an indelible imprint on your hearts.

Don’t miss a moment! We encourage you to join us as a subscriber (and offer a heartfelt thank you if you already are.)  The adventure that awaits at Curious is only possible through the gathering of committed, enthusiastic theatre-goers like you. Your ongoing support ensures we’ll continue to travel together on this art-filled adventure through the best of contemporary theatre.

With gratitude and excitement for the road ahead,

Jada Suzanne Dixon & Jeannene Bragg
Artistic & Managing Directors

When I first read Letters of Suresh, I found it to be lyrical, unusual, and captivating. I felt really compelled by these flawed characters, scrutinizing themselves, and longing for connection. The people who populate this world are consumed with regret and full of unmet hopes and desires. It is in the throwback, slow custom of writing letters where they seek consolation. Writing a letter is not expedient. It is not immediate. It does not provide instant gratification. It is a dwelling in language, a practice of reflection like journaling, but with the hope of being seen. 

Each person in this play is seeking redemption. Each have made mistakes (like the rest of us, I suppose). The Japanese principle of wabi-sabi applies to the people and world of this play: “Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional” (Leonard Kohen, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers). I am drawn to Suresh, Melody, Amelia, and Father Hashimoto because they are imperfect, because they are people in the process of becoming. They are people earnest trying to earn their peace. 

The characters in this play are marked by difference from one another, but this is not a polarized, fractured world of misunderstanding. This play is not exactly debating worldviews forged through faith or secularism, though it takes on those questions. The characters in this play are grappling for answers, noticing the details, listening to one another though they are miles apart. This play explores the refreshing possibility of unlikely and deep friendships where people simultaneously disagree and hold each other in mutual positive regard. 

While Rajiv Joseph wrote this play prior the Covid-19 pandemic, I cannot help but filter my understanding of the play through what we all experienced in 2020: unparalleled isolation and slowness, time to focus on ourselves, our habits, mistakes, and choices. It was also a rare time of sharing a global, catastrophic loss—together in it, but apart.

Whether it was politically justified or not for the United States to drop the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima—whether the sacrifice of countless lives was worth the cost of ending WWII—is beyond my scope and the scope of the play. Some 78 years later, however, we are left with that decision and the reality of that catastrophic loss. I am left wondering: is it possible to repair that harm? Can we take accountability for the cost? Can reparations be made? Can the survivors and their descendants forgive? Is peace possible? 

Sadako Sasaki believed so. Sasaki is one of the most well-known hibakusha—a Japanese term meaning “bomb-affected person.” She died ten years after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima from radiation and after trying to fold 10,000 paper cranes prior to her death, each a prayer for peace. Paper cranes are offered when people are sick or as a prayer for peace, an offering for a sick world. If Sasaki, after all she had been through, could believe in the possibility of peace—personally or on a global scale—then perhaps so can we. But how do we get there?

I’m curious about what happens when, instead of erasing or escaping from our mistakes, we face up to them and learn how to apologize. Apologies take courage and, in the words of Mariame Kaba, “fumbling towards repair” is clumsy, humble, hard work. Facing up to how we have let ourselves and others down or have caused harm in this culture, which seems allergic to accountability, is a radical act. And it is the cost of love and human connection. When we care about others, we sacrifice our egos and the ideas we have about ourselves to live authentically and in right relationship with the world around us. I wonder if, indeed, everything heals. I wonder if there is a grace to be found down every path. 

Julie Rada
Director

Seattle, Boston, and Nagasaki. Now.

(in Alphabetical order)

Hossein Forouzandeh* as Suresh
Desirée Mee Jung* as Melody
Anne Penner as Amelia
Peter Trinh* as Father Hashimoto

Set Design by Markas Henry**
Costume Design by Erin Carignan**
Lighting Design by Miriam Suzanne
Sound & Projection Design by Brian Freeland
Co-Props Design by Krystal Brown
Co-Props Design & Stage Manager, Wayne Breyer*
Assistant Stage Manager, Jordyn Good

Rehan Hasan, President
John Flanigan, Treasurer

Marike Fitzgerald
Chip Horne
Michael Hughes
Greg Laugero
Michael Potts
Sheri Raders
Jamie White
Alyssa Williams

*Jeremy Shamos, Honorary Lifetime President
*Roscoe Hill, Board Member Emeritus
*Cajardo Lindsey, Artistic Company Member
*Erik Sandvold, Artistic Company Member
*Jeannene Bragg, Managing Director
*Jada Suzanne Dixon, Artistic Director

*non-voting members

Artistic

Jada Suzanne Dixon, Artistic Director
Wayne Breyer, Production Manager & Resident Stage Manager
Christy Montour-Larson, Artistic Producer
Piper Stormes, Technical Coordinator 

Administrative

Jeannene Bragg, Managing Director
Camdon Presley, Marketing & Development Manager
Katelyn Sauer, Operations & Patron Services Manager
CeCe Smith, Finance Manager

Front of House

Clove Love, Lead Front of House Representative
Aidan Blank, Front of House Representative
Aidan Dick, Front of House Representative
Evy DiPasquantonio, Front of House Representative
Krystyna Pinel, Front of House Representative
Evette Srouji, Front of House Representative

 

2023–24 Curious Bridge Apprentices 

Jordyn Good, Stage Management Focus
Clove Love, Directorial Focus
Evette Srouji, Directorial Focus

Lisa Boehm
Kevin Brainerd (In Memoriam)
Anastasia Davidson
Richard Devin
Jada Suzanne Dixon
Jason Ducat
Brian Landis Folkins
Ilasiea Gray
Kathryn Gray
William Hahn
Josh Hartwell
Markas Henry
GerRee Hinshaw
Jim Hunt
Cajardo Lindsey
Sheryll McCallum
Shannon McKinney
Michael McNeill
Christy Montour-Larson
Michael Morgan
Josh Robinson
Erik Sandvold
Sean Scrutchins
Karen Slack
Todd Webster
Annette Westerby

Artistic Company Emeriti

Thank you to our founding Artistic Company Members whose dedication, hard work and artistic vision has helped make Curious the amazing theatre it is today.

Dee Covington
Chip Walton

GO DEEPER with Curious & LETTERS OF SURESH

Compiled by Christy Montour-Larson

• The Playwright:  Rajiv Joseph
• People Places and Ideas in LETTERS OF SURESH
• Wabi Sabi

The Playwright:  Rajiv Joseph

Click here to view a video interview with playwright, Rajiv Joseph and Artistic Producer, Christy Montour-Larson (Coming Soon)

People, Places and Ideas in LETTERS OF SURESH

MELODY:  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but Father Hashimoto passed away suddenly two weeks ago in his home at Nakamachi Church.”

The construction of Nakamachi Church started in Nagasaki, Japan in August 1891 and dedicated 1897. The church was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945, but was rebuilt in 1951.

Nakamachi Church in 1920’s and after the atomic bomb in 1945

Nakamachi Church rebuilt, today

MELODY:  “In the box, along with your letters, was a piece of origami. A bird. 

I guess my great-uncle must have folded it.”

Many studies assert that origami was invented by the Japanese about a thousand years ago, but its roots may well be in China, where paper was invented.  One of the earliest known paper-folding instruction books was Akisato Rito’s Sembazuru orikata (1797), and it showed how to fold linked cranes cut and folded from a square of paper. Scores of origami societies exist around the world. Especially significant is the Japan Origami Academic Society, which is a conduit for many of the most innovative constructions in contemporary origami.

One of the most famous origami designs is the Japanese crane. The crane is auspicious in Japanese culture. Legend says that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will have their heart’s desire come true. Learn more about origami here

MELODY: “I don’t remember the last time I wrote a letter.”

According to a CBS News survey, 37% of adults polled in the U.S. said it’s been over five years since they’ve written and sent a personal letter through the mail, and just under a third said they’ve written one within the past 12 months.  Another 15% of the 1,717 adults surveyed have never written and sent a personal letter — ever.

MELODY:  “There are wooden sculptures of martyrs in the garden – monks murdered in Nagasaki hundreds of years ago.”  

The 26 Martyrs of Japan were a group of Catholics, including 3 young boys who served as altar boys, were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597 in Nagasaki, Japan. 

At Nakamachi Church gardens are wooden statues of the martyrs.

SURESH:  “I didn’t see you folding when I saw you there at the Hypocenter.” 

Reference to ground zero of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 at 11:02am during World War II.  The area within a 2.5 kilometer radius of the hypocenter was utterly devastated, and the rest of the city was left in ruins. After the bombing, which destroyed all plant life around the hypocenter, people said that no plants would grow there for the next 75 years. However, one month after the atomic bombing, about 30 kinds of plants started to grow again. Today, there are about 500 cherry blossom trees in the Hypocenter Park, as well as flowers and lush greenery that can be seen throughout the year. 

SURESH:  “My eyes perceive colors differently depending on my emotional state.” 

Mood can indeed affect our perception of colors. A person who’s “feeling blue” might actually be less able to accurately identify colors on the blue-yellow spectrum than they would for upbeat days. While emotion in and of itself plays a role in perception, there are also physical explanations. For example, dopamine, the neurotransmitter that affects feelings of well-being, is linked with color perception.  

SURESH: “The woman who taught me, my mentor, she mended something in me.  But in doing that, she also opened something else up?”  

A reference to Ilana in Animals Out of Paper, a companion play to Letters of Suresh, which Rajiv Joseph wrote thirteen years earlier. Ilana is a famous reclusive origami artist and teacher who suffers from depression due to a divorce and loss of her aged dog. She has barricaded herself in her studio—surrounded by paper cranes and Chinese take-out boxes.  Her seclusion is interrupted by Andy, an energetic high school teacher, and his student prodigy Suresh, who urge Ilana back into the world.

SURESH:  That is a ritual of the hypocenter, but you decide to take my bird home, just because you liked it?

A black vault at the foot of the Hypocenter Monument, holds the names of the victims of the atomic bombing and those who died years later. Next to the statue, are colorful, hanging garlands of paper cranes. Each year, well-wishers from across the country and around the world send thousands of these folded origami cranes to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sites of the atomic bombings, as prayers for peace. 

The tradition started with Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who became a victim of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States. She was two years of age when the bombs were dropped and was severely irradiated. She survived for another ten years, becoming one of the most widely known hibakusha—a Japanese term meaning “bomb-affected person”. At age eleven, while being treated for leukemia likely caused by radiation, Sadako folded a thousand cranes paper cranes, hoping to return to school and athletics. She died at the age of 12 on October 25, 1955.

Origami cranes at the Hypocenter in Nagasaki

SURESH:  “The heart of a blue whale is the largest heart in the history of existence.”

The whale’s heart is about 5 feet in length, 4 feet in width and 5 feet in height, and can weigh as much as some cars. A blue whale’s heartbeat is so loud that it can be heard from almost 2 miles away.

A blue whale model on exhibit in Boston

SURESH:  “There is no love without a cross and no cross without a victim.”

This line is from a poem written by the playwright’s maternal grandfather, William Gauchat, a devoted Catholic.  His poem was printed in the Catholic Worker newspaper, which was known for its neutral, Christian pacifist position.

MELODY:  “The torii arches look fake.” 

A torii arch is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred and a spot where holy powers are welcomed and thought to travel through. 

A torii arch in Nagasaki and a torii arch at Botanical Gardens in Seattle

SURESH:  “I am an agent of war, a man whose work contributes to misery and hastens the end of the world.”

Reference to the famous quotes of J. Robert Oppenheimer when he witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945.  He has said a piece of Hindu scripture ran through his mind: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

AMELIA:  “PPS.  I read your letters.”

If you want to add a note or detail to a completed letter after signing off, you can include a postscript (PS). Some people will include a series of postscripts in their letters. The subsequent postscripts should be written with two p’s (PPS). This stands for post postscript. 

AMELIA:  “PPPS. It’s immoral what I did and it is literally against the law.”

1. If your notes are more than two; you can choose N.B. (Nota Bene)
2. If you intentionally open someone else’s mail, you could face a sentence with imprisonment for up to three years!

Wabi Sabi

Our director, Julie Rada, was inspired by Wabi-Sabi – a celebration of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. You can read more about it HERE!

Discussion Questions

1. When was the last time you wrote a letter?  Why do you think Melody keeps writing to Suresh? Why does she send his letters back?
2. Do you have any letters that you have kept?  Why do you think Father Hashimoto kept Suresh’s letters?
3. Melody says repeatedly that she cannot understand why reading Suresh’s letters made her parents reconcile with her sister in London. Why do you think the letters inspired this change of heart?
4. Have you ever written a letter and never sent it? Who do you think Melody was writing to twelve years ago when she wrote a letter to someone but didn’t sent it?
5. Each character in this play is on a journey of seeking forgiveness, either forgiveness from others or from themselves. Which of these journeys most impacted you? 
6. How would you characterize the theological conversations between Suresh and Father Hashimoto? Do you think they came to a place of understanding?
7. How do you think Suresh’s work in weapons research influenced his relationship with Father Hashimoto?
8. How did you feel the set, projections, lights, costumes and sound added to your experience of the play? 
9. Your great discussion question here!