🙋🏽♀️OKAY HERE’s THE DRAMA — EMOJI @ Newburgh is at 3PM! 😅🌲
If you saw my last email, 👀 I said I’d be doing my show at Newburgh Fringe Festival on October 25th and 26th at 9 & 10 AM — time slots SO early scientists have yet to confirm their “existence.” But the Aarushi-heads & Aarushi-curious needn’t fear — the Newburgh shows are actually at 3PM 😅, hamdillah.
Blame it on the Google Suite, the Greenwich Mean Time Goblins (band name?), and the fast-eroding construct of “Time.“ I think we all learned an important lesson today about sending a 🎶risky email (risky-mail) 🎶
AND IF YOU DIDN’T SEE MY LAST EMAIL, you’re only getting half the sto— WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT, HI!!! 👋🏽
I’m Aarushi. 💁🏽♀️
You’re here because you’re in my community, you came to the show at NYC Fringe, or IDK maybe we slept together just kidding i am just so flustered because‼️ MY ‘stunning,’ ‘hilarious,’ ‘heart-wrenching,’ ‘nuanced, pointed’ 1 EMOJI SHOW IS DOING FESTIVALS & YOU SHOULD TOTALLY COME!
🎶They will see us waving from such great heights 🎶SCROLL DOWN NOW 🥺 ⬇️2
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
The original email with ~newly-clickable~ show dates & details starts below these garlands I made us 🧘🏽♀️
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
🎶Oh no, I think it’s time to send a risky email (risky-mail) 🎶/
Hello dear friends! ✨
I haven’t done my solo show, EMOJI: The Hieroglyphs of Our Time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text 🤷🏽♀️ since its SOLD-OUT RUN at the NYC Fringe Festival — thanks to all of you who supported me and made it great. 💛
Now EMOJI is back this fall in Newburgh, NYC, and Pratt 👇🏽 👇🏽 👇🏽
I just spent hours making this in Canva. S/O to Meghan for letting me use her Canva Pro.
I know it kind of looks like a funeral announcement, but we are in the Golden Age of gallows humor.
🔜 SAVE THE (correct!😁) DATES 🗓
Newburgh Fringe Festival 🌲
📍 105 Ann St, Newburgh, NY
Saturday, October 25 at 3PM
👉 Add to Calendar
Sunday, October 26 at 3PM
👉 Add to Calendar
🚗 About an hour north of the city on the Hudson. A perfect excuse for a fall day trip (foliage, river views, and me performing EMOJI) 🎶I think we can save this, with a tree 🌴🎶
Gotham Storytelling Festival 🔥🔥🔥
📍The Wild Project, 195 E 3rd St, NYC
Saturday, November 8 at 5PM
👉 Add to Calendar
Sunday, November 9 at 8PM
👉 Add to Calendar
Sunday, November 16 at 4PM
👉 Add to Calendar
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is the one I think most of you will come to. It’s also the kind of thing that a teenage-me would’ve had a wet dream about performing at. It’s kinda giving NPR. It’s about double the size of my venue for NYC Fringe, and I’d love to pack it!! 🤞🏽
Pratt Institute
📍Alumni Reading Room, Pratt Libraries, Brooklyn, NY
Tuesday, November 18 at 5PM
This one’s for the Pratt community — and maybe a literary agent you put me in touch with?😉 My triumphant return to the academy! 📚
🎟❓ Tickets aren’t live yet. But they’ll be at http://aarushiagni.com as soon as they are!
🔜 Stay tuned for the ticket-drop.
🖊🗓All I need for you to right now is to ink me into your calendar.
And also for you to get so hype that you’re (almost) ready for how good it’s gonna be. 🎉
Photo credits: Samantha Lochs, Rachel Kenaston, GIF by me 🥺
You better come to the show, because you know what? 😤
KIND WORDS HAVE BEEN SAID! 💕🔊
BY REPUTABLE SOURCES! (and I’m not being ironic, there were actually way more3 than this but I’m trying to try to be brief)
“Absolutely dazzled… I expected to laugh, but not to be so deeply moved.”
—Kirthana Ramisetti, author of the The Other Lata and Advika and The Hollywood Wives
“Aarushi is a brilliant talent that shines as bright as the supermoon she sings about. Her use of wit, comedy and song invites us to engage with the hard questions. In her relentless pursuit of honesty she lends us the courage to know that it’s not only okay to send a risky text, it’s absolutely necessary.”
— Raquel Palmas, musician & improviser, Baby Wants Candy!
“We were locked in the entire time. Tell me when your show in November is. I’m putting it in my calendar, right now.”
—A very funny sexy woman at this one show where I just did the first 15 minutes. Maybe you should come to my show to find out her identity!
“This was great.”
—My friend’s new lover that she brought who clearly has good taste 💁🏽♀️
⏯ And also, we got a really amazing video review from the Broadway Baker herself, Liz Davenport. Watch it here.
WHY YOU SHOULD COME SEE EMOJI 👀🔮
….everyone is doing it. JK don’t do anything because of that reason! BUT TBH if you saw the quality of the people who are doing it??? 🥰
Photo Credit: Annie Moretto
no, but for real…
EMOJI: The Hieroglyphs of Our Time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text 🤷🏽♀️ is…
✅ Funny AF 😌
✅ Full of tangents that give language to things you kinda always thought 💁🏽♀️
✅ Nerdy in a fun way, NOT in a “um, actually” kinda way 🤓
✅ Featuring lil sketches, videos, slides, and MUSIC (you know the the thing that the hills are alive with the sound of…?) I cha nneled from the collective consciousness 🎶🔮
✅ If I’ve done my job… it’ll make you feel less alone 🫂 in this literal hellscape 🤬
If you’ve ever…
☮️ Craved community
💬 Wondered why some text a novel — & others send a single heartxclamation point❣️
🤔 Felt the crushing weight of an awkward miscommunication
📱 Sent “no worries if not” when you actually meant “I’ll do it this time I SWEAR”
👀 Wanted show that makes you laugh, feel, & bond for life with the person sitting next to you…
☺️ Found me charming
… then you should ABSOLUTELY come see this show. 💁🏽♀️🪄
It literally made me a sell-out. (Proof attached)
My producer Jess and I flexing our “Sell Out Award” ❣️
Not pictured: Sam Lochs, Annie Moretto, Dominique Nisperos or Paul Johnson, but their souls were there.
This Fall, EMOJI goes back to school at Pratt Institute: “I’m getting too old for this!” 👩🏽🎓
This fall I’ll be the inaugural Alum-In-Residence at Pratt Institute where I got my MFA in Writing.
Here’s an excerpt of the letter I wrote to the students… It’s so embarrassing.
you could say my solo show ~queers~ the presentational lecture format, but tbh the format has always been hella gay. no spoilers, but i’d say my work is very stupid and also gets to the heart🫀 of what it means to be human ❌🤖. it’s maximalist & cringe, finding the silly in the profound, the profound in the mundane, and with all due respect, the lime in the coconut 🥥. and also the politics in the coconut. 😅
I want to be cool so bad…! I’ll be doing a class visit wherein I will pretend to be a writer, eat lunch with students, do one-on-ones with the students about their work (maybe even some stand-up!), and of course — my show! It’s so crazy I’ve tricked all these people into thinking I’m some really talented and thoughtful performer.
But how are you — Aarushi — the person? You’re not just some kind of show-pony to us.
Well, you should know by now that I am a unicorn. 🦄 And, I’m good! If you know me, you know I subscribe to the mysterious movements of the moon (pictured below). The eclipses in Pisces and Virgo certainly messed with my circadian rhythm.. 🛌☀️🛏🌙
The Supermoon is so big and beautiful, 👀 and prefers if you consolidate your requests. 🙂🔪
Photo credit: Samantha Lochs
Old patterns resurface as seasons change, hearts break and melt together anew. The summer was songwriting, pilgrimages to Madison and Chicago, boarding on shores of the big-ass Lake Michigan, a karmic visit to Rockaway, listening to “Both Sides, Now” 1000x and stuff I cant’t tell you because my mom is here 😇.
Looking at water & revisiting parts of yourself can really make you cry about how much you’ve changed. I’m overjoyed for these changes even while I love my past self and her chubby cheeks. I’m glad for even the boring and annoying moments on Earth. I think I’ll miss them most of all. If this feels esoteric, my show might provide more context. 🎴
TB-so-H, not fully ready for the hyperfocus this show induces. When I sit down to work on it, I want to do it. I want to do it so badly it supersedes my desire to eat and sleep — 2 things I’m already bad at. What keeps me healthy is a commitment to making up sleep debt, eating a lot of spicy soup, and the knowledge that I’m kind of in love with this project. It keeps me warm at night — but also my 2014 laptop gets really hot. 👩🏽💻💬
Thanks for reading, folks!
📆Save those dates & Keep it here for updates.
📲Tell as many people as you can about the show. Maybe send them this vid!
✍🏽If you know people who write about theatre or have connections or you just think I’d be interested in me, send them my way!!
😎AND NEVER FORGET THE POWER OF GOOD VIBES. People think it’s not real, but if you knew how many downstream wins I’ve gotten just off vibes alone… woof.
1 Your words, not mine… Results from NYC Fringe’s audience survey.
2 My original subheading was going to be “& another chance to say, 'hey, that Aarushi sure has a mouth on her fingers!' 💁🏽♀️,” which I thought was like a funny body-pun about our communication in the digital age, but it also sounds so 😯 but that made it even more SO funny, but I didn’t want to alienate people because I want you to come to my show. Anyway, pls tell me if you see this & you have a strong opinion, I am truly dead 💀 in almost all senses of the word rn. SCROLL BACK UP TO SEE THE TIMES! Actually, I’ll just put them here in miniature:
Newburgh Fringe Festival 🌲 Saturday 10/25 at 3PM + Sunday 10/26 at 3PM
Gotham Storytelling Festival @ The Wild Project 😜 Saturday 11/8 at 5PM + Sunday 11/9 at 8PM + Sunday 11/16 at 4PM
Pratt Institute 📚 Tuesday, 11/18 at 5PM
3 See footnote 1.