In Shishir Kurup’s Merchant on Venice, Venice, Italy intersects with L.A.’s Venice Boulevard in a wickedly funny, wildly inventive and politically provocative re-imagining of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Written in iambic pentameter and vividly colored by Indian, American and Latino pop references, playwright Kurup transforms Shakespeare’s original by injecting the story with Bollywood musical numbers, L.A. Punk, Hindu-Muslim tensions, and a distinctly American landscape.
Set in China in the early 1900's, the Obie Award winning Golden Child tells the story of Eng Tieng-Bin, a wealthy merchant who returns from abroad filled with Western ideas and Christian beliefs, and hopes of liberating China from its superstitious past.
But in a polygamous marriage riddled with jealousy and suspicion, what will Eng's religious conversion mean for each of his three wives? Can new ideas and old traditions co-exist or are they destined to collide?
An inventive fusion of Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Tagore’s The Home and the World, Sankalpan evokes a time of revolution that draws sharp parallels to the geopolitics of today. A story about self-determination—both in the psyches of individuals hungry for change and in the psyche of an evolving national identity—Sankalpan is set against the volatile backdrop of 1907 Bengal. Personal struggles play out on a national stage, which is rapidly changing as the demands of independence refigure relationships between British Imperialists and Indian Nationalists, rich landowners and poor peasants, and, most explosively, in new possibilities in the relationships between men and women.
To the outside world, the Lee boys look like the perfect Korean American sons: Isaac plans to be a doctor and his younger brother, Jimmy, is a champion swimmer with a bright future. But when their widowed father, Boo-Seng, decides to take them on a road trip to Durango, Colorado, all three find themselves grappling with old memories and unhealed wounds. As tempers flare and secrets break open, the difference between who they are and who they’ve pretended to be threatens to tear the family apart.
Award-winning playwright Yussef el Guindi gives us a darkly humorous, sensual, and provocative look at identity, media representation, love, and lust in the Arab American community. Struggling writer Gamal, fueled by frustration over the limited Arab voices represented in the US media, engages in a prank campaign to shake up the system. His weapons? A chocolate mousse cake and lipstick. His targets? A popular Arab American writer and an influential Sheikh. But those in power have a way of turning the tables. When Gamal’s lover, Noor, is convinced by a prominent publisher to alter her novel to satisfy Western hunger for “Orientalist” fare, Gamal lashes out at his own community. The results are staggering.
Venice, Italy intersects with the Indian Diaspora of Venice Beach, California in a wickedly funny, wildly inventive, and politically provocative re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Written in iambic pentameter and vividly colored by Indian, American and Latino pop references, playwright Shishir Kurup transforms Shakespeare’s original by injecting the story with Bollywood musical numbers, L.A. Punk, Hindu-Muslim tensions, and a distinctly American landscape.
