THEATRE + COMEDY

Shunya presents an evening of education and entertainment! A staged play reading featuring selections from Shishir Kurup’s “Merchant on Venice.” Directed by Yaksha Bhatt and Sara Kumar. Lecture by Dr. Neilesh Bose: Sharuk, Shylock, and South Asian Diasporic Theatre in a Post-Colonial World. Talkback moderated by Dr. Bose.

Shishir Kurup’s Merchant On Venice is a wickedly funny, politically provocative reimagining of Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice. Set on Los Angeles’ Venice Boulevard, the play combines iambic pentameter with Hindu-Muslim tensions, Bollywood musical numbers, and the LA punk scene. The play has received awards from the California Arts Council, Kennedy Center, and NEA/TCG.

Shunya will present readings of selections from Merchant on Venice combined with a lecture by Neilesh Bose.

Dr. Bose is a historian and theater artist. His academic interests include modern South Asian history, theater and performance in South Asia and its diasporas, post-colonialism, and decolonization. His recent publications include the edited collection Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora (Indiana UP, 2009), a co-edited translation of Utpal Dutt’s Maanusher Adhikare (The Rights of Man) (Seagull India, 2009), and articles and reviews in TDR: The Drama Review, Comparative Studies of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and South Asia Research.

He has held fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays Program of the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities and lectured in university settings throughout North America, Europe, and South Asia. He is currently an assistant professor of South Asian history at the University of North Texas in Denton, TX.