Uncovering South Asian American Playwrights
Author:
Julia Tokish ’22Co-Authors:
Faculty Mentor(s):
Dr. Meenakshi Ponnuswami, EnglishFunding Source:
Presidential FellowshipAbstract
American theatre is a discipline heavily dominated by white playwrights, while other races remain disproportionately underrepresented. This includes South Asian American playwrights, who are not only underrepresented but underresearched. Included under the more general umbrella of “Asian American theatre,” South Asian playwrights receive little attention of their own. They are rarely reviewed or published, despite producing vast quantities of work.
My research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. Meenakshi Ponnuswami, aims to uncover these playwrights and bring them the recognition they deserve. I collect and organize information on first- and second-generation immigrant playwrights of South Asian descent as well as their plays. In the future, we plan to use this research to create a publicly searchable database and publish a selected number of the plays from our research in an anthology.