During a month packed with shows and other entertainment and artistic activities, here comes something different and new: Naga-Mandala, a production drawing from South Indian folklore that incorporates elements of music, storytelling, classical Indian dance and circus.

It’s a first production for a new Sarasota nonprofit called White Plume Productions. Its founder, Salil Singh, a longtime theater director (and also head of the Suzuki Institute School of Music here in Sarasota) says he set White Plume up “for purposes of inviting collaboration between creative individuals in our community gathered around performing arts.”

Naga-Mandala was written by Indian playwright Girish Karnad, who also used the material for a 1997 film. Singh says the play has its origins in “oral folktales of the kind mothers and grandmothers tell children playing in the courtyard as they are drawing water from the well.” It mainly depicts the tale of a young woman whose parents find a suitor for her to marry. But the suitor becomes a cold, neglectful husband, who locks her up in his castle and visits her only for lunch each day, never spending the night.

That makes it easy for a nearby king cobra (Naga-Mandala here translates into Play with a Cobra) who can transform himself into any shape to pay nocturnal visits to the neglected wife, looking exactly like her husband. The two fall in love, but what will happen when the real husband finds out?

The story is introduced by a character fittingly called the Storyteller (played by Singh), who himself has been cursed to stay awake one whole night or die. (The reason for the curse: His plays have put audiences to sleep.) He’s trying desperately to remain awake when a chorus of dancing “Flames” descends to gossip about human life; and he tells them, “I will listen to you all night. My life depends on it.”

According to Singh, “If a playwright can stay awake all night, wrapped in story, and live to tell it, that’s the next chapter in his life.” Mixed into the performances: music featuring Indian sitar and flute, melded with cello and violin in a more Western chamber ensemble. And, due to the collaboration with the Circus Arts Conservatory, the story also lends itself to airborne explorations—aerial movements and a trapeze—while Singh says the large space will be converted into a more intimate setting.

A team of 14 actors in all (many local, with the two romantic leads from the Atlanta area) brings the story to life. “With these things, you put it out there with as much imagination and effort as you can,” says Singh, “and invite a conversation with people who see it and are inspired.” It’s a chance for Sarasota audiences, who may or may not be familiar with much about Indian cultures, to pay a visit to another world.

Naga-Mandala will be presented March 13-15 at the Circus Arts Conservatory building on Bahia Vista. For more information, go to whiteplume.org; for tickets, click here.