BEHIND THE MOON

By Anosh Irani

Directed by Lois Anderson

In a Mughlai restaurant in Toronto, Ayub cooks and cleans. When a mysterious cab driver walks in one night and shatters his peace, Ayub must face reality, the family he’s left behind and the dreams he’s abandoned, all while keeping the restaurant clean to a mirror shine.

From award-winning playwright and author Anosh Irani, Behind the Moon is an achingly beautiful story of love and loss, freedom and faith, the meaning of brotherhood, and how we begin a new life.

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  • DATES:

    March 25 – April 6, 2025

  • WHERE:

    Vancity Culture Lab, The Cultch

  • RUNNING TIME:

    TBD

CAST & CREATIVE TEAM

Director
Roy Surette

Starring 
Diane Brown
Craig Erickson
Alex Gullason
Sherine Menes
Raugi Yu

Set Designer
John Webber
Lighting Designer
Hina Nishioka
Sound Designer
Mary Jane Coomber
Costume Designer
Sheila White
Props by
Apollo Palmer
Dramaturgy by
Stephen Drover

Assistant Director
Cameron Peal
Stage Manager
Stephen Courtenay
Apprentice Stage Manager
Finnley O’Brien
Technical Director | Production Manager
Alistair Wallace

Diane Brown - Hurricane Mona

Diane Brown

Susan

Diane is a multi award-winning director and actor, and is the Artistic Director of Ruby Slippers Theatre. She has been honoured to receive recognition for her work including the prestigious Bra D’Or from Playwrights Guild of Canada, a national award in recognition of her years of commitment to furthering under-represented voices. Select acting for RST: The Duchess a.k.a. Wallis Simpson, Communion, A Beautiful View. For Touchstone: Sled, Happy Place. Select directing for RST: Benevolence, You Will Remember Me, Les Belles-soeurs, Trout Stanley, Aprés Moi, The Leisure Society. Diane heads up Theatre Cares
and sits on the Advisory Board for Vancouver Civic Theatres. She earned a BFA from SFU and an MFA in Directing from UBC. Diane dedicates this show to Dylan.

Craig Erickson - Hurricane Mona Cast

Craig Erickson

Rick

For Touchstone: Prodigal Son (with Pacific Theatre). Other: Henry V (Bard on the Beach), The Cull (Arts Club), Yellow Fever (Firehall), Wakey Wakey (PT) East Van Panto: The Wizard of Oz (Theatre Replacement), Forget About Tomorrow (Belfry/Arts Club), Angels in America, Parts 1 and 2 (Arts Club), As You Like it (Bard on the Beach), Titus Buffonius (Rumble Theatre), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Arts Club/Blackbird Theatre), Tear the Curtain (Arts Club/Electric Company), The Great Gatsby(Theatre Calgary). Also in production: Craig and castmate Raugi Yu have created a TV comedy pilot about security guards called Calvin and Jerzy.

Alex Gullason

Alex Gullason

Mona

Alex is a Jessie and Ovation award-winning actor, singer and comedian hailing from North Vancouver, BC. She is a graduate of the Musical Theatre Program at Capilano University.
Select theatre credits include Cabaret/Company/Sweeney Todd (Raincity), Mamma Mia! (Chemainus Theatre), We Now Know/Jesus Christ:The Lost Years/The Canada Show (Monster), Hair (Renegade), Broken Sex Doll (Virtual Stage) Titanic/Bye Bye Birdie/Joseph (TUTS). Film/TV credits include Schmigadoon! Season 1 & 2 (AppleTV), Christmas in Tahoe (Hallmark), Riverdale/The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (The CW). Alex performs weekly with the main stage ensemble at The Improv Centre and is one half of the two-women comedy duo The Dangerous Janes.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

ANOSHIRANI(1)

ANOSH IRANI

Anosh Irani has published four critically acclaimed novels: The Cripple and His Talismans (2004), a national bestseller; The Song of Kahunsha (2006), which was an international bestseller and shortlisted for Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; Dahanu Road (2010), which was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize; and The Parcel (2016), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His play Bombay Black (2006) won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, as did his one-man show Buffoon (2019). His anthology The Bombay Plays: The Matka King & Bombay Black (2007) and his play The Men in White (2018) were both finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. Behind the Moon was a finalist for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play. Irani’s short stories have appeared in Granta and the Los Angeles Review of Books and have been collected in Translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories and One Half Truth (2019). His nonfiction has been published in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Guardian, and the New York Times. His work has been translated into eleven languages, and he teaches fiction and playwriting in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.