Madhuri Shekar

Playwright: New York, Chennai, Los Angeles. For script and production enquiries, contact my agent Beth Blickers at bblickers [at] apa-agency [dot] com.

[madplays]

QUEEN in the Bay Area

QUEEN will be playing in the Bay Area this weekend, Sep 28-29! Tickets/info: https://www.tikkl.com/enacte/c/queen 

Produced by EnActe Arts and directed by Vinita Sud Belani. 

EnActe did multiple wonderful productions of my play A NICE INDIAN BOY and I'm so glad to be working with them again.

The Simpsons writer/producer and playwright Mike Reiss saw the Bay Area premiere of the play last week and was nice enough to leave a video review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVCslfkP48U

Which also made me think of another amazing video review I got for this play, from Tanya Saracho herself, playwright extraordinaire and creator of the new Starz show VIDA. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTHBo2yjaKU/?taken-by=madplays

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

[madplays]

Had my first workshop of a new radio play for Audible this week, coming to your ears in 2019! Very very excited for this one. Thank you @piajune for taking these pictures of our process! (at Minetta Lane Theater) https://www.instagram.com/p/BnfaYT6Bc_Y/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ecx9beisggbo

[madplays]

QUEEN in Seattle

My play QUEEN is currently running in Seattle, presented by ACTLab and Pratidhwani. Directed by Agasty Kohli. Closes August 19.

Tickets and more info here! https://acttheatre.org/actlab/2018-2/queen-aug-19/

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Dates: August 3-19, 2018 Runtime: about 1 hour and 40 minutes and will be presented without an intermission Location: Bullitt Cabaret

PhD candidates Sanam and Ariel have spent the better part of the last decade exhaustively researching vanishing bee populations across the globe. Just as these close friends are about to publish a career-defining paper, Sanam stumbles upon an error, which could jeopardize their reputations, careers, and friendship. How far will you go to defend your ethics and standards of integrity, and at what cost? Queen by Madhuri Shekar is a play about pursuit of truth, relationships, and bees.

“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth. When you know the truth, the truth makes you a soldier.” – Mahatma Gandhi

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[madplays]

The beautiful cast of HOUSE OF JOY at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2018. Join us for our final reading tomorrow, 7/28, at 12pm at Potrero Stage in SF. The show is sold out but there will be tickets at the door and we will get you in! Tell your Bay Area friends! 📸: Lorenz Angelo #bapf2018 (at Potrero Stage)

[madplays]

In an Imperial Harem in a place like India in a time like 1666, Hamida, a bodyguard, wakes to the oppression in her midst and decides to do something about it. Seduction, skullduggery and swordplay in a mythic, swashbuckling action-romance for the ages!

Up next for HOUSE OF JOY - the Bay Area Playwrights Festival! Readings on Saturday 7/21 8pm and Saturday 7/28 12pm

Directed by Daniel Banks and Dramaturged by Vidhu Singh. 

[madplays]

Working on a play for @victorygardenstheater this week at the Colorado New Play Festival! (at Steamboat Springs, Colorado)

[madplays]

WE GRADUATED TODAY. Behold the Juilliard playwriting fellows, class of 2018. ❤️❤️❤️ Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, Jenny Rachel Weiner, Krista Knight, Jonathan Payne, and me. So proud and happy to know these humans.

[madplays]

See Inside the Lincoln Center Theater Event Raising Visibility for the South Asian Theater Community | Playbill

The event, in collaboration with Tamasha: A Festival @ Hypokrit Theatre, took place May 3.

This was a tremendous night organized by Natasha Sinha (LCT3) and Arpita Mukherjee (Hypokrit Theatre Company). Was so honored to be on this panel and meet many many beautiful South Asian theatre artists in NYC. And to get to make cool folks like Aneesh Sheth and Ayad Akhtar laugh at my grumpiness.

[madplays]

Me and a bunch of other really cool playwrights will be featured in PPF at South Coast Repertory, this weekend. Come join us!

[madplays]

BIG NEWS!

Victory Gardens’ new season will include plays by Paula Vogel, Ike Holter and Madhuri Shekar 

So so so so happy to share that I'm coming back to Chicago with a new play at Victory Gardens, premiering June 2019, directed by Chay Yew himself! (!!!!!!!) And I get to share the season with some of the best plays and playwrights in America today. I can’t believe it.

[madplays]

Playwrights get a new stage: Audible announces 15 writers for audio theater project

Audible has announced the first class of emerging playwrights to receive support from a $5 million fund for new one- and two-person audio plays.

Thrilled to be in the first round of commissioned playwrights by Audible! My play is a supernatural horror story inspired by my mother and our daily long-distance phone calls, and I cannot wait for you to hear it.

[madplays]

Play reading and production information about South Coast Repertory's 21st Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival

HOUSE OF JOY IS GOING TO CALIFORNIA!!! :) (And so am I!)

Come see a reading at the beautiful Segerstrom Stage at South Coast Repertory on April 22, 2018.

[madplays]

Three things in January!

Thrilled to be part of the 2018-2019 Ars Nova Play Group with these wonderful writers. A place to write and work for the next two years. So excited to see what we create.

On Thursday, Jan 25, come see a reading of HOUSE OF JOY by New York Stage and Film, as part of their Winter Season! Directed by Zi Alikhan and featuring this incredible cast - MaYaa Boateng, Mahira Kakkar, Sathya Sridharan, Jihae Park, Deepa Purohit, Rasha Zamamiri and Ian Fields Stewart.

And for an evening of fun and new and inventive short sci-fi plays, come join us at NY MADNESS on Sunday, Jan 28, at 8pm. USE code NYMFRIENDS for $5 tix!!

[madplays]

‘HOUSE OF JOY’ workshop at Juilliard, September 2017!

[madplays]

Act 4: The Wedding Scene

The couple dated and broke up and dated and broke up and dated and broke up. Then Mr. Sullivan told himself, in a letter, how he honestly felt.

In personal news... :) :) :) :) 

[madplays]

HOUSE OF JOY / AUG 10 - Atlantic Theater Company

HOUSE OF JOY by Madhuri Shekar directed by Saheem Ali Thursday, August 10 | 3pm Atlantic Stage 2, 330 West 16th St. Set some time like the 17th century, in some place like Delhi, India, House of Joy tells the story of Hamida, an elite female bodyguard in the Emperor’s Imperial Harem. Faced with an impossible ethical quandary, Hamida tries to help an abused Queen escape the heavily guarded harem, thus risking her life and going against everything she was raised to believe. A swashbuckling action-adventure romance inspired by the legends of Indian history.

Come see a reading of my new play at the Atlantic Theatre Asian American Mixfest! RSVP at the link. 

~*~

HOUSE OF JOY by Madhuri Shekar directed by Saheem Ali

Thursday, August 10 | 3pm Atlantic Stage 2, 330 West 16th St.

Set some time like the 17th century, in some place like Delhi, India, House of Joy tells the story of Hamida, an elite female bodyguard in the Emperor’s Imperial Harem. Faced with an impossible ethical quandary, Hamida tries to help an abused Queen escape the heavily guarded harem, thus risking her life and going against everything she was raised to believe. A swashbuckling action-adventure romance inspired by the legends of Indian history.

[niyantha]

A photo from my sister’s wedding :)