Exciting News for South Asian Playwrights

South Asians, when they go to the theater in America, have got used to seeing just one or two performers who are desi and, if they are lucky, there may be random Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi names in the crew. Imagine then, the delight these audiences feel to hear that an entire theater festival is dedicated to their stories, their angst, their joys – their part of the world!

Yes, it’s true – get ready for the inaugural South Asian Playwrights Festival. It’s being presented by ASDS AT Pace University and EnActe Arts from May 17th -19th at the Actors Studio Drama School, 80 Greenwich, New York, NY.

 

South Asian Artistic Initiative (SAAI)

The South Asian Artistic Initiative (SAAI) is being launched by Bucks County Playhouse, a leading nonprofit professional theatre in New Hope, Pennsylvania.  The program was developed by the three Broadway producers that run the Playhouse:  Robyn Goodman, Alexander Fraser and Josh Fiedler.

 After a nationwide competition among authors of South Asian descent, three finalists have been selected to receive mentorship and a reading this spring at the Playhouse.  A finalist will receive a fully staged workshop on the Playhouse stage in the fall, and in New York.

I was recently invited to a cocktail announcing this great upcoming event at the beautiful home of Heather Randall, noted theater philanthropist, and the wife of the late beloved actor Tony Randall. She has been the Chair of the New York Theater Workshop board for ten years and is a champion of new artists and emerging playwrights. Also present were the team behind Bucks County Playhouse. And I was quite starstruck to meet Rajiv Joseph, the award winning playwright of Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo. Over cocktails and canapes, I found out how this interest in South Asia had developed. The producers of Bucks County Playhouse had been involved with ‘Bombay Dreams’ on Broadway!

“Bucks County Playhouse started in 1939 and had an an illustrious, fabulous history. For 40 years, it was the creme de la crème,” said Alexander Fraser. “Grace Kelly made her professional debut there, as did Jessica Walter and Robert Redford and many others.” Fortunately, wealthy venture capitalists bought it from auction so that it didn’t get torn down and spent $6 million to completely restore it to its past glory. “It is a beautiful storybook theater, right on the Delaware River. COVID had dwindled the audiences but after 2023, the theater is doing very well with a theater loving population that had moved there from New York.  The team has also used out of the box thinking to find new audiences for a new time.

The new audience included many South Asians who live around Bucks County, Montgomery County, near Philadelphia, and the whole pharmaceutical belt from Princeton to New Brunswick. There’s an enormous South Asian community there, and the team was already familiar with them for Fraser had been the executive producer of Bombay dreams on Broadway: “ idea that we could actually engage with this community that is not as represented in the American theater as it should be is  a wonderful thing for us to do. We thought we’d get 30 or 40 plays. We got over 100 plays!”

Each playwright got assigned either Ann Catania, who was the dramaturge at Lincoln Center for many years, Christian Parker, who was the Associate Artistic Director of the Atlantic Theater and Rajiv Joseph, right now, who is nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for his play, King James.

Ironically Rajiv Joseph’s first play was inspired by his father’s life: My father’s from Trivandrum in Kerala in India. He came to the United States when he was 18 years old, and he told me a story about this kind of madcap adventure he had as an undergraduate, and I transformed that into my first play called Huck and Holden, which was at the Cherry Lane Theater.

He also spoke about one of the plays which will be part of the festival. He said, “When I read American Hunger by Nikhil, I was just deeply moved, as I’m sure you will be if you get the chance to hear it or see it. It’s a beautiful, moving story about two teenage boys who grew up in the same block in Brooklyn. Their fathers both own a Chinese restaurant and an Indian restaurant. And this is a story about coming of age. It’s a story about sons and fathers. It’s an immigrant story. It’s a New York York story, and about how those are they basically the same thing, right?”

Nikhil Mahapotra, an emerging playwright whose work you will get to see at the festival, said, “in the bastion of New York theater, there’s so many development opportunities, but really, when we think about focused opportunities for South Asian artists, they’re really not very many, or actually none at all. So, this would be the only one. And this was such a good lift to know that there was burgeoning support, and a growing community.”

He emphasized that South Asian artists and actors and directors could do really do phenomenal work, but they need to know that the court is out there, not even just monetarily, but also in their communities, coming out and supporting them, coming to see the shows, coming to cheer on, As we know, the theater world is complex, especially after the pandemic, and having this little place for shelter has been incredibly amazing, and I can’t wait to see where the play goes. Hopefully up. I would love to meet you all there.”

So, the good news for New Yorkers is that the staged readings of all three original plays ae being held in New York in this inaugural South Asian Playwrights Festival. 

These three plays are the finalists of a competition with over 100 submissions by South Asian playwrights from around the world that was launched as part of the South Asian Artistic Initiative at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, PA. 

Each play was read and evaluated by a panel of mentors including award-winning playwright Rajiv Joseph (“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo”), Christian Parker (former Associate Artistic Director of The Atlantic Theater Company), Anne Cattaneo (former Dramaturg of Lincoln Center Theater), Kiran Merchant and Playhouse producers Goodman, Fraser, and Fiedler. From the audience responses, the producers and mentors will choose one play that will get a full workshop on their stage in September 2024.   So mark the days on your calendar

Here is the schedule:

Inaugural Festival Opening Reception – May 17th at 6:30pm 

American Hunger by Nikhil Mahapatra – May 17th at 7:30pm 

Co-Directed by Rajiv Joseph and Kiran Merchant

Two Asian restaurants vie for culinary dominance in their rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Crown Heights, while their children begin to question the choices that will make—or break—their prospects as a continuation of the ambitions of their immigrant parents. 

Tea for Toofi by Ravi Kapoor – May 18th at 7:30pm 

Directed by Kiran Merchant 

Based on Molière’s Tartuffe, Tea for Toofi by Ravi Kapoor is a mad-cap farce set in 1980s Orange  County, CA, and tells the story of a retired computer engineer who invites a Hindu priest into his  home to put his godless family to rights.

A Muslim in the Midst by Anand Rao – May 19th at 4:00pm 

Directed by Vinita Sud Belani 

Set in India, during the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, A Muslim in the Midst is an intense play that unravels the inherent contradictions and universal conflicts of our time. A chance encounter between two couples turns an act of kindness into a dark journey, fueled by the media, into each other’s prejudice, guilt, fear, and ignorance. 

For actors and wanna-be actors here’s information on the organizations behind these initiatives:

Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University, New York offers MFAs in acting directing and playwriting.

The Actors Studio Drama School MFA program at Pace University offers students the authenticity, continuity, and authority of the Stanislavski System and the Method. Uniquely modern in its approach, the School is an ideal conservatory for aspiring actors who want to be prepared to tackle a broad range of both character and leading roles, and for budding directors and playwrights looking to develop their expertise using the collaborative Actors Studio philosophy and tradition.

EnActe Arts is an 11-year-old theater company with offices in Houston, Bay Area, and now New York.

EnActe has a twofold mission- To embrace Eastern and Western traditions of storytelling by developing and presenting thought-provoking stories that put South Asian voices in a global context

-To act as an inclusive platform for developing diverse talent in the performance arts.

The EnActe School of Drama runs innovative theatre based K-12 afterschool programs and workshops and classes for adults.

Collaboration is built into the EnActe DNA. More than 75% of the work EnActe does is in collaboration with other theatre companies, dance companies, museums, community organizations, and high schools. 

And finally to end on a high note about the original Bucks County Playhouse which went through bad times and is on top again. is a year-round, nonprofit theatre that has grown to a $8 million producing organization with an annual audience of more than 80,000. Founded in 1939 in a converted 1790 gristmill, Bucks County Playhouse quickly became “the most famous summer theatre in America,” featuring a roster of American theatrical royalty including Helen Hayes, George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, Kitty Carlisle, Angela Lansbury, Alan Alda, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, and Liza Minnelli.

In 2014, Tony Award-winning producers Alexander Fraser, Robyn Goodman and Josh Fiedler took the helm of the Playhouse, and today the Playhouse has reclaimed its reputation of attracting Broadway and Hollywood artists. 

Attendence to all three plays is free and open to all, ages 15 and older.

Interestingly there is a huge South Asian population in Pennsylvania – are they destined to be the new theater-goers and perhaps the playwrights of their own stories?