Presented by Atlantic Theater Company, Elyria tells the story of two immigrant women, their families, and their interweaving lives. Staged in the round at the Linda Gross Theatre, the play begins at a festival where Vasanta (Nilanjana Bose) and Dhatta (Gulshan Mia) unexpectedly run into each other after. They exchange tense words in Gujarati, Swahili, and English with a slight British accent. Their conservation is stiff, there’s a two-decade-old secret these women share, and all will be revealed in an unlikely place: Elyria, Ohio in 1982.
