Shayok Misha Chowdhury

Shayok Misha Chowdhury is a many-tentacled writer and director, born in India, based in Brooklyn. He recently received an Obie Award for directing the world premiere of his playwriting debut, Public Obscenities, at Soho Rep, a co-production with the National Asian American Theatre Company. The “extraordinary bilingual drama” was a New York Times Critic's Pick and hailed as a “literary marvel” and “complexly layered masterwork” by The New Yorker. The play had encore runs at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Theatre for a New Audience. Misha is also the recipient of a Princess Grace Award, The Mark O’Donnell Prize, Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, and a Jonathan Larson Grant for his body of work writing musicals with composer Laura Grill Jaye. The duo’s most recent collaboration, How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia, was awarded the 2022 Relentless Award. Misha collaborated on the Grammy-winning album Calling All Dawns. Other favorite collaborations: Brother, Brother (New York Theatre Workshop) with Aleshea Harris; SPEECH (Philly Fringe) with Lightning Rod Special; MukhAgni (Under the Radar @ The Public Theater) with Kameron Neal. Misha is currently working on commissions from Playwrights Horizons and the Manhattan Theatre Club. As a Resident Artist @ HERE Arts Center, he is developing Rheology, a collaboration with his physicist mother, which was awarded an inaugural Sundance Asian American Fellowship. The piece will premiere at The Bushwick Starr in 2025, a co-production with HERE and Ma-Yi Theater Company.