A free comedic stage production about flood resiliency wraps a multi-borough tour this weekend, with a final 1:30 p.m. performance Sunday, September 27, at Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing. “Please Don’t Flush!” was staged at public spaces across Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island from September 19 to 27 as part of Climate Week NYC, and it is free to the public, QNS reported.
The play follows a community board scheduled to vote on a mysterious waterfront development that neighbors, seagulls and plumbers worry will increase inland flooding, QNS reported. The board members are derailed and instead begin planning their bi-annual gala, celebrating their second-vice-chair’s half birthday and locking the “anti-anti-anti-anti-development” coalition in the bathroom.
Sabina Sethi Unni wrote and directed the production, which features a cast of 10 actors, QNS reported. The cast includes Ray Jordan Achan, Fahad Ahmad, Amr Kotb, Amar Baines, Kshithij Hegde, Jess Balgobin, Jill Cornell, Maribelle Flint, Josabeth Simisterra and Tom Lee, who also serves as musical director. They are joined by a production team of designers, engineers, illustrators and fabricators.
Unni has been writing and directing plays on flood safety for four years, starting with her 2022 project Rainy Day Play, Queens Ledger reported. She told Queens Ledger the idea came from her day job as an organizer, through which she regularly attends community board meetings, and one “contentious, three-and-a-half hour debate about one tiny change” in particular.
“Everyone was very researched and passionate, and I was like, ‘this is a play.’ The way you watch it is very theatrical,” Unni told Queens Ledger. “But the work that organizers and council members do can sometimes feel very invisible and mundane. There’s also still a lot of silliness toward the whole institution, so it’s a great device to talk about neighborhood change and flooding.”
The production is a collaboration with the Waterfront Alliance and NYC Emergency Management, Queens Ledger reported. Jill Cornell, an NYCEM community engagement specialist who appears in the cast, told Queens Ledger she does not usually use humor in emergency preparedness work. “But working with Sabina has allowed me to widen our use of humor. And if you come and see the play, you’ll see me making fun of myself,” Cornell said.
“Flooding is a dangerous hazard, but preparedness messaging doesn’t always have to be serious for effectiveness,” Christina Farrell, commissioner of NYC Emergency Management, said in a statement carried by QNS. “‘Please Don’t Flush!’ uses humor to start important conversations about flood risk and resilience, helping New Yorkers learn how to prepare before the next storm.”
Julie Raskin, president and CEO of the Waterfront Alliance, said the production “uses the power of storytelling to make flood preparedness personal, relatable and actionable,” according to QNS. “As climate impacts become more frequent and visible, we need new ways to engage communities in preparedness and resilience,” Raskin said.
The tour earlier stopped at Staten Island Urban Center in Stapleton on September 19, Baisley Pond Park in Jamaica on September 20 and Van Alen in Gowanus on September 22, QNS reported. It is the fourth iteration of Rainy Day Plays’ public events, following performances of Flood Sensor Aunty in 2024 and 2025 that toured 12 locations across Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island, plus one show at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
The tour comes as the city faces heavier rainfall. In 2020, the National Climate Assessment recategorized New York City from a coastal temperate climate zone to a humid subtropical one, which, according to a 2025 statement from the City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency, and Waterfronts, meant more intense storms and heavier rainfall, Queens Ledger reported. The New York State Climate Impacts Assessment projected that total precipitation in the city could increase between 4 and 11 percent, Queens Ledger reported, a projection that followed events such as Hurricane Ida, in which floods killed 13 New Yorkers.
Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced an $8.4 million investment to improve flood prevention infrastructure in Queens, Queens Ledger reported.
Unni told Queens Ledger her advice is to get to know your neighbors. “Whether that’s checking in on them without flood or whether you live in a basement apartment and have contacts to help you go up, not out when it does flood, it’s life-saving,” she said. “Advocacy doesn’t always help you create these relationships, but adaptive capacity and optimism can help protect your neighborhood from climate emergencies.”
Show times, locations and a form to RSVP are available at pleasedontflush.com.
Featured image: Courtesy floodsensoraunty.com
