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Heller Theatre Company: Radiant One
Theatre Tulsa Studios
May 28, 2026
In her debut as Heller Theatre Company’s playwright in residence, Carlyn Flint presented Tulsa with a piece from her graduate school days: an adaptation of a spiritual text called The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. Believed to be written in 800 C.E. Kashmir, this text details 112 yogic meditations to help a person find oneness.
We know very little about this text, as Flint explains in her program note—not even its author. Flint’s play explores a fictional origin story, inspired by the mediations themselves. The plot follows a character called Reva, or more accurately her spirit, from the end of her previous life and through the one she is reincarnated into. As a child, she gravitates towards meditative practices and expresses a brave curiosity, asking those simple “why” questions that make adults uncomfortable.
As she matures, so does this inquisitive spirit, and Reva finds herself distanced from her peers. A fateful meeting with a young boy, Kheertan, which moves through flirtation and later heartbreak, sends Reva into a deep depression, resulting in a lung infection that eventually ends her life. In her final days she writes the poems that eventually become The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. Through it all, her mother Anya, who is carrying her own emotional baggage, stays by her side, offering counsel and necessary side eyes when needed.