- Soho Rep and the NAATCO National Partnership Project present
Public Obscenities
written & directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury
Tuesday-Sunday at 7:30 pm
Saturday Matinee at 3:00pm
February 15 - March 26
When someone dies, we say they “become a picture.” Chhobi hoye giyechhe.
Say it again?
Chhobi hoye giyechhe.
Choton relishes being the translator, toggling nimbly between Bangla and English, Grindr banter and academese. But when he returns to Kolkata with his boyfriend Raheem—to the house his grandfather disappeared from decades ago—an unexpected discovery leaves Choton at the limit of what language can touch.
Public Obscenities is a bilingual play from writer-director Shayok Misha Chowdhury about the things we see, the things we miss, and the things that turn us on.
Creative Team
Shayok Misha Chowdhury
Writer-Director
Shayok Misha Chowdhury is a many-tentacled writer and director based in Brooklyn. Misha began writing PUBLIC OBSCENITIES as an inaugural member of Soho Rep’s Project Number One. Upcoming: SPEECH (Philly Fringe) with Lightning Rod Special. In process: RHEOLOGY (HERE Arts Center) with Bulbul Chakraborty. Recent: BROTHER, BROTHER (New York Theatre Workshop) with Aleshea Harris; MUKHAGNI (Under the Radar @ The Public) with Kameron Neal; HOW THE WHITE GIRL GOT HER SPOTS AND OTHER 90s TRIVIA (Joe’s Pub) with Laura Grill Jaye. Misha and Laura were awarded a 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant for their body of work writing musicals together. Misha is also the creator of VICHITRA, a series of sound-driven, cinematic experiments, including ENGLANDBASHI (Ann Arbor Film Festival), THE OTHER OTHER (Ars Nova), IN ORDER TO BECOME (Bushwick Starr), and AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER DREAMS (Third Coast Audio Unbound award finalist; Sound Scene @ the Hirshhorn). He was a collaborator on the Grammy-winning album CALLING ALL DAWNS and has received residencies and fellowships from Sundance, New York Stage and Film, NYSCA/NYFA, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Hermitage Artist Retreat, The Drama League, the Jerome Foundation, Mercury Store, BRIC, Fulbright, and Kundiman. Misha’s poems have been published in The Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, The Public’s Devised Theater Working Group, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, and Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab. MFA: Columbia.
Partners
NAATCO (National Asian American Theatre Company) was founded in 1989 by Richard Eng and Mia Katigbak. NAATCO’s mission is to assert the presence and significance of Asian American theatre in the United States, demonstrating its vital contributions to the fabric of American culture. They present the following repertory: European and American classics as written with all Asian American casts; adaptations of these classics by Asian American playwrights; new plays – preferably world premieres – written by non-Asian Americans, not for or about Asian Americans, but realized by an all-Asian American cast; and new plays by Asian American playwrights that incorporate other performative arts and media. Their latest initiative, the NAATCO National Partnership Project, establishes relationships with theaters around the country to ingrain the inclusion of Asian American theatre artists, technicians, and administrators in their programming for the long run.
Supporters
Production fees for playwrights at Soho Rep are generously sponsored by The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation.
