Arun Lakra - playwright

Arun is an India-born, Calgary-based writer. He has written plays, screenplays, a song to protest the demotion of Pluto (unsuccessful!), and his share of illegible prescriptions. 

As a writer and as a consumer, Arun gravitates to material that is thought-provoking, innovative, fast-paced, structurally complex, and also makes him laugh. Sometimes only him. Once, a presumably concussed theatre reviewer compared his work to that of Aaron Sorkin. That was a good day. Ice cream was consumed.

In addition to his creative endeavors, Arun trained as an eye surgeon at the University of Toronto and has spent 25 years practicing ophthalmology. He is passionate about the intersection of science and the arts with the bidirectional flow of ideas, and he uses his platform to encourage students (and grown-ups) to explore both spheres.

When movie night arrives at the Lakra family home, it is a rare film that we all agree on. Yet for some reason, my Fast and Furious son (Taro) and my Pitch Perfect daughter (Siya), my Princess Bride (Roopa) and her Holy Grail husband all love watching fun heists movie like Oceans 11. Or 13. (Let’s not talk about 12.) Now if only we could agree on the snacks. 

A couple of years ago, out of the blue, Chad Rabinovitz, the Artistic Director of Bloomington Playwrights Project in Indiana (also a heist lover), knocked on my door wanting to commission me to write a ‘heist’ play. His goal was to create a fun, edge-of-your-seat, popcorn-munching, twisty-mystery-heist-whodunnit for the stage.

I said no. 

It was an impossible task. How could we possibly bring the sizzle and thrills of a glitzy hundred million dollar Hollywood extravaganza to a simple stage? Plus, writing a heist play, and particularly one for smart, sophisticated audiences who can spot a suspicious butler a mile away, was daunting. Surely they’d seen it all.

I was persuaded to give it a shot. By that I mean I sprawled on the sofa and watched every caper movie ever made (all the while trying to persuade my family that I was “working”). One day, I had a glimmer of an idea. I started to wonder… could we actually pull off a heist… on stage?

I am grateful to Chad for his belief in me, to all the folks at Vertigo, Citadel, the Grand, and Arizona Theatre Company  for bringing this show to life, to Haysam for his directing brilliance, to the amazing casts and designers for being talented and enthusiastic co-conspirators in putting on, and pulling off, Heist.

About: 

An "intellectually sexy" award-winning science-thriller in the same genre as Proof, Copenhagen.

Synopsis:

“Luck is like irony. Not everybody who thinks they got it, got it.”

Theo has been named Time Magazine’s Luckiest Man Alive. For twenty consecutive years he has successfully bet double or nothing on the Super Bowl coin toss. And he’s getting ready to risk millions on the twenty-first when he is confronted by Cynthia, a young woman who claims to have figured out his mathematical secret.

Stem-cell researcher and professor Dr. Guzman is on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery. She’s also learned that one of her students has defied probability to get all 150 multiple-choice questions wrong on his genetics exam, but it’s not until he shows up to her office in the middle of the night that she’s able to determine if it’s simply bad luck.

The two narratives intertwine like a double helix of DNA to examine the interplay between logic and metaphysics, science and faith, luck and probability. Belief systems clash, ideas mutate, and order springs from chaos. With razor-sharp wit and playful language, Sequence asks, in our lives, in our universe, and even in our stories, does order matter?

Awards:

Winner of the Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play.

Winner of the Calgary Theatre Critics Award for Best New Script.

Winner of the Joanne Woodward/Paul Newman Award for Drama, Bloomington Playwrights Project.

Finalist for STAGE (Scientists, Technologists, and Artists Generating Exploration) International Script Competition, University of California Santa Barbara. (Judges included 3 Pulitzer-Prize winners (Tony Kushner, David Lindsay-Abaire, Donald Margulies) and 2 Nobel Laureates (2012).

Winner of the Grand Prize, Alberta Playwriting Competition, Alberta Playwrights Network/Theatre Alberta.

Winner of the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Drama Prize (Writers Guild of Alberta Literary Awards).

Longlisted for James Tait Black Prize for Drama, University of Edinburgh/National Theatre of Scotland.

Selected Productions:

Tarragon Theatre, Toronto ON

Downstage Theatre/Hit and Myth, Calgary AB

Bloomington Playwrights Project, IN

Adirondack Theatre Festival, NY

Theatre 40, Beverly Hills CA

Cast:

Dr. Guzman: Female. Fifties.

Theo: Male. Fifties.

Mr. Adamson: Male. Twenties.

Cynthia: Female. Twenties.

Publication:

SEQUENCE by Arun Lakra

Playwrights Canada Press (Second edition, 2020)