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Shayok Misha Chowdhury

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Shayok Misha Chowdhury
Image
Chowdhury in 2025
Born (1984-12-23) December 23, 1984 (age 41)
EducationStanford University (BA) Columbia University (MFA)
Occupations
  • Playwright
  • stage director
RelativesBulbul Chakraborty (mother)
Writing career
Notable workPublic Obscenities
Websiteshayokmishachowdhury.com

Shayok Misha Chowdhury (born December 23, 1984) is a Bengali-American playwright and theater director. He wrote the plays Public Obscenities and Rheology. For Public Obscenities, Chowdhury was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Chowdhury has also directed productions of Aleshea Harris's Brother Brother, Jordan Tannahill's Prince Faggot, Jesse Eisenberg's The Ziegfield Files, an outdoor revival of The Gospel at Colonus, and his own plays.

Early life and education

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Chowdhury was born in India,[1] on December 23, 1984.[2] He grew up in Massachusetts.[1] His parents, Bulbul Chakraborty and Partha Chowdhury, are both physicists who emigrated to the US when he was a child.[3] A native Bangla-speaker, he grew up listening to the plays and songs of writer Rabindranath Tagore, which became a major influence.[4]

Chowdhury received a bachelor's degree from Stanford University. He later received an MFA in theater from Columbia University,[5] graduating in 2016.[6]

Career

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In 2020, Chowdhury and partner Kameron Neal's MukhAgni, a "performance memoir", was part of the 2020 Under the Radar Festival.[7] Later that year, the fourth part of Chowdhury's project Vichitra was presented at the Bushwick Starr.[8] He also has worked with Laura Grill Jaye to form the songwriting duo "Grill and Chowder". Grill Jaye and Chowdhury received the Relentless Award from the American Playwriting Foundation in 2022 for their unproduced musical How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other '90s Trivia.[9]

Public Obscenities

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Chowdhury wrote and directed Public Obscenities, which premiered at the Soho Repertory Theatre in February 2023.[10] Co-produced by Soho Rep and the National Asian American Theater Company, the play follows Choton, a Bengali-American PhD candidate returning to Kolkata, India with his black American cinematographer boyfriend Raheem to study the region's queer subculture. The narrative follows Choton and Raheem and Choton's relatives, who they stay with in Kolkata.[11] Chowdhury has identified the work as semi-autobiographical, matching his own history as an academically oriented Bengali-American, who often traveled with his black film-maker partner.[12] The plot was also partially inspired both by a story his uncle told him and by Chowdhury's reflections on the young life of his deceased grandfather.[11]

The play is bilingual, with dialogue in both Bangla and English, featuring supertitles.[11] Chowdhury described the style as akin to "theater vérité" wherein "the aesthetic leans into documentary precision and mimics the rhythms of real life."[12] It was a New York Times critic pick.[13] In the The New Yorker, Helen Shaw characterized Chowdhury's writing and direction as "both gorgeously precise."[14] Public Obscenities was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.[15]

Rheology

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In 2025, Chowdhury wrote and directed Rheology in a co-production between The Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, and Ma-Yi Theater Company. The play features both Chowdury and his mother, Bulbul Chakraborty, as the lead players, acting under their own names. In the narrative, the characters discuss and re-enact Chakraborty's death, especially in the context of Chowdhury's work as a theater-maker and Chakraborty's work as a physicist focused on rheology.[3] Chowdhury described the play as premised on their opportunity "to meet each other’s professional selves, which is a thing that my mom never got to do with her mom."[16]

In a New York Times review, critic Juan A. Ramirez noted that it was occasionally "heady," but overall praised the work as a follow-up to Public Obscenities.[17] In a version staged at REDCAT in Los Angeles, Charles McNulty praised the work generally as well as the "visual panache" of Chowdhury's direction.[18]

Directing projects

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In 2025, he directed Jordan Tannehill's play Prince Faggot, which was described a hit with positive reviews.[19] Chowdhury's work was described as calibrated for "maximum theatricality" by Jesse Green.[20] Shaw wrote that he directed with "explicit brio".[21] In the same year, Chowdhury directed a revival of the musical The Gospel at Colonus on Little Island at Pier 55 and Jesse Eisenberg's one-man-show The Ziegfeld Files at Studio Seaview.[22][23] In addition to his own work, he also directed a digital version of Aleshea Harris's Brother Brother in 2021.[24]

Work

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As writer

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Year Title Premiere Venue Notes Ref.
2020 MukhAgni Under the Radar Festival Created and performed with Kameron Neal [25]
2023 Public Obscenities Soho Repertory Theatre Also director; finalist for 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama [10]
2025 Rheology (play) The Bushwick Starr Also director, co-lead actor [3]

As director

[edit]
Year Title Venue Writer Notes Ref.
2021 Brother Brother New York Theatre Workshop Aleshea Harris Digital stream [24]
2023 Public Obscenities Soho Repertory Theatre Shayok Misha Chowdhury [10]
2025 Rheology The Bushwick Starr Shayok Misha Chowdhury [3]
2025 Prince Faggot Playwrights Horizon Jordan Tannahill [20]
2025 The Gospel at Colonus Little Island at Pier 55 Lee Breuer & Bob Telson Revival [22]
2025 The Ziegfeld Files Studio Seaview Jesse Eisenberg [23]

References

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  1. 1 2 Raymond, Gerard (April 2005). "ADIL MANSOOR & SHAYOK MISHA CHOWDHURY with Gerard Raymond1". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved September 2, 2026.
  2. ↑ Chowdhury, Shayok Misha [@mishachowdhury]; (December 23, 2024). "Turning 40 is serious, so I'm cutting this cake very seriously. [...]" – via Instagram.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Weinert-Kendt, Rob (2025-04-22). "All About My Mother: The Parent Trap of 'Rheology'". American Theatre. Retrieved 2026-08-27.
  4. ↑ Teeman, Tim (2026-04-25). "Can Physics Soften a Mother's Death?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-09-03.
  5. ↑ Tran, Diep (April 16, 2026). "He's a Playwright, His Mother's a Physicist—And They're Performing a Show Together". Playbill. Retrieved September 2, 2026.
  6. ↑ "Catch the World Premiere of 'Work of Devotion,' Directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16, at Second Stage in February 2027 | School of the Arts". arts.columbia.edu. 2026-08-28. Retrieved 2026-09-03.
  7. ↑ Aronoff, Amy (2021-03-24). "Conversations | Shayok Misha Chowdhury". Nyfa. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  8. ↑ "Trapdoors into Other Worlds: Shayok Misha Chowdhury talks with Tarfia Faizullah about VICHITRA". Culturebot. 2020-12-09. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  9. ↑ Hall, Margaret (September 9, 2024). "Playbill Songwriter Series: Get To Know The Dynamic Duo Grill and Chowder". Playbill. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  10. 1 2 3 Putnam, Leah (March 7, 2023). "Soho Rep Extends World Premiere of Shayok Misha Chowdhury's Bilingual Public Obscenities". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2026-01-15. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  11. 1 2 3 Putnam, Leah. "Shayok Misha Chowdhury Took His Life in India and Turned It Into Public Obscenities". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2025-12-17. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  12. 1 2 Folliard, Patrick. "Memories of time spent in India revealed in 'Public Obscenities'". Washington Blade. Archived from the original on 2023-11-25. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  13. ↑ Ramírez, Juan A. (2023-03-02). "Review: 'Public Obscenities' Pushes Far Beyond One Field of Study". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  14. ↑ Shaw, Helen (March 22, 2023). "Public Obscenities". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  15. ↑ "Shayok Misha Chowdhury | The Pulitzer Prizes". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  16. ↑ Raymond, Gerard (2025-04-08). "ADIL MANSOOR & SHAYOK MISHA CHOWDHURY with Gerard Raymond". Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  17. ↑ Ramírez, Juan A. (2025-04-29). "In Two New Works, the Power of Generational Connections". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  18. ↑ McNulty, Charles (2026-06-12). "Review: Lessons in letting go: In 'Rheology,' Shayok Misha Chowdhury's secret weapon is his physicist mother". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2026-08-27.
  19. ↑ "Sex, drugs and S&M: hit play depicts Prince George as grown up and gay". Times of London. June 21, 2025. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
  20. 1 2 Green, Jesse (2025-06-18). "Review: He's Here, He's Queer, He's the Future King of England". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-09-03.
  21. ↑ Shaw, Helen (2025-06-26). ""Prince Faggot" Sends Up Kink and Country". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
  22. 1 2 Collins-Hughes, Laura (2025-07-14). "'The Gospel at Colonus' Review: Singing Hallelujah on the Hudson". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-09-03.
  23. 1 2 "Jesse Eisenberg Solo Play The Ziegfeld Files Extends Off-Broadway Run". Playbill. Retrieved 2026-09-03.
  24. 1 2 "André De Shields Stars in Stream of Aleshea Harris' Brother, Brother Beginning April 26". Playbill. Retrieved 2026-09-03.
  25. ↑ "The Other Other". Ars Nova. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
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