Megan Suri, Kapil Talwalkar, Kunal Dudheker, Kathryn Smith-McGlynn, and Ranjita Chakravarty Photo by Kevin Berne

In the final stages of Sequoia Dynamics' development of a rocket carrying an $8.2B payload to Jupiter's moon, Europa, Chief Architect and Mission Manager Krish promotes Baasu as Director of Propulsion Systems. CTO C.K.–like the two men, an Indian immigrant herself–is concerned Leela, an American of Indian descent and a critical manager of Propulsion Systems, is not happy. C.K. sends VP of HR Operations Val to check things out with Systems Manager Leela, with some suspicion that Leela may feel cheated out of the promotion to director because she is female.

Even though Leela quickly assures Val that "I'm good, all good, concern free" and that Baasu's "doing great ... all good," Val checks in with Baasu, who readily admits, "Leela should have this job ... She knows it, I know it, everyone on the assembly floor knows it." But as Val presses the sex discrimination angle, Baasu counters with "It isn't a woman thing ... It's an Indian thing."

Like gingerly peeling an onion, Val–a middle-aged Black woman–cautiously asks the twenty-something Baasu how it can be "an Indian thing" when he, Krish, Baasu, and even C.K. are all Indian by birth or descent. With a look of getting caught telling a secret, Baasu uses his hands sliding up and down his side to denote who is high and who is low in Indian status, denoting Krish is of the highest traditional Indian class, Brahmin, and Leela's family heritage is of the lowest, Dalit (or "untouchables"). Baasu also tries to assure Val that, while his own heritage may be similar to Krish and may be a factor in their getting along so well, he himself is "class-less" and has rejected the heritage and caste traditions that Krish's family in India–and by implication, Krish–still adhere to.

Like Pandora's box, questions, accusations, denials, and even some admissions multiply as Val pursues the matter further with all. Krish is Val's good friend with whom she has run half-marathons, C.K. and Val have "shared a thing" since sharing a dorm room, and Leela now starts remembering things like last year's Christmas party when Krish refused his favorite type of doughnut when she offered it to him from her hands, as complexities mount by the minute even as Geetha Reddy has generously sprinkled gems into the script to bring chuckles. (You try sitting on an inflatable red ball when there are no chairs available at a meeting of the minds.)

The corporate culture of Silicon Valley becomes an ongoing target for jabs, with Val constantly correcting others that "employees" are "team members" or with she as HR head–in the midst of a team blow-up of words and near blows–suggests a time out for team building (bumper cars, anyone?) or at least for collective in-and-out breathing (while of course raising and lowering arms all together).

But one piece of Silicon Valley culture is beyond question for each and all in this quarreling quintet: Nothing must delay the impending, get-rich-quick IPO which depends on a successful rocket launch. That especially means that Leela must not decide to involve Employee Relations with a complaint of discrimination–an act sure to bring in lawyers and outside, unwanted scrutiny. Can promising the now-incensed Leela the command of the final countdown or of forcing Krish to take anti-bias training be enough to cool things down?

The twists and turns of shifting alliances and open-war conflicts multiply even as sparks of a different sort begin to ignite, and flames of an announced intent upend both cultural heritage and corporate hierarchy. Reddy's script is a rollercoaster ride in which serious questions about identity and cultures are asked even as the audience enjoys the humor and heart embedded in the process of the exploration.

To a person, the cast assembled for this one-hour, forty-minute (no intermission) production is out of this world stellar. Megan Suri is superb in portraying a series of character-shifting arcs that Leela undergoes as she realizes how her own Indian class heritage as a Dalit has been kept purposely hidden from her by her parents while also remembering blatant examples throughout her own life of its effects. As Baasu, Kunal Dudheker brings boyish, animated manners that quickly endear but also hide biases that he too may have, which he is too quick to deny.

Kapil Talwalkar brings a sense of some mystery to Krish; while he clearly carries some sense of inbred superiority, there is something else going on inside him causing serious questioning of who he really is and what he really wants. As the esteemed (and a little feared) boss of all three, Ranjita Chakravarty's C.K. is a wonderful combination of stern-eyed boss, caring mother figure, hopeful millionaire, and not-so-secret lover.

But in the end, it is Kathryn Smith-McGlynn's Val who rises to the top as the most effusive and entertaining. As the HR exec, Val wavers between pushing for justice for what seems an apparent discrimination, searching for a compromise no one seems to want, and doing all she can to stop the train from leaving the station that could cause a wreck for all their dreams of an IPO. With a myriad of facial expressions that speak volumes, her Val is constantly penning notes with vigor on her ever-present yellow pad while searching to no avail in the company's latest employee handbook for a modern-day solution to a situation that has been thousands of years in the making.

Wilson Chin's slick and multi-leveled set design is an eye-popper with its high-tech lab look crowned by a rotating, rising/lowering, twisting-in-perspective rocket base that is a workspace for Leela's tinkering of its multiple wired connections. Amith Chandrashaker adds a futuristic feel with lighting that swirls in the thrusters of the rocket base and illuminate in various colors the lab's tables during each scene shift. Lisa Misako Claybaugh has designed costumes that range from Leela's lab-wear of a cleanroom "bunny suit," goggles, and gloves to C.K. and Val's ever-changing sophisticated wear to typical, casual looks of Valley engineers to the beauty and grace of traditional Indian attire.

Geetha Reddy's hit of last summer's TheatreWorks' New Works Festival, The Employee Dharma Handbook, has matured and is sure to feel right at home in Silicon Valley, ready to launch its own future onto stages across the land as a new play that asks all of us to examine how we may be limiting our futures by hanging on to present assumptions about our past.

The Employee Dharma Handbook runs through August 2, 2026, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto CA. For tickets and information, please visit www.theatreworks.org or call 1-877-662-8978.