Queen

Madhuri Shekar is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. She was born in California and grew up in India, and is currently based in Jersey City. Madhuri is an alum of the Juilliard Playwriting program, a fellow at New Dramatists, and the 2020 winner of the Lanford Wilson Playwriting award.

Madhuri’s audio play Evil Eye debuted on the Audible best-seller list in May 2019, and won the 2020 Audie Award for Best Original Work. Her play House of Joy received its world premiere at Cal Shakes in August 2019. Madhuri’s new play Dhaba on Devon Avenue was slated to premiere at Victory Gardens in April 2020, and is postponed till we emerge into a new post-pandemic life.

Madhuri’s other plays include Queen (2019 New York Innovative Theatre Awards, Outstanding Original Full Length Script; Edgerton New Play Award), In Love and Warcraft (Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award), A Nice Indian Boy, Antigone: Presented by the Girls of St. Catherine’s, and the TYA play Bucket of Blessings (Suzi Bass Award for Outstanding Original Work – TYA).

Madhuri’s plays have also been developed or showcased at Center Theatre Group, the Old Globe, the Kennedy Center, the Hedgebrook Playwrights Festival, South Coast Repertory, the Movement Theater Company, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ma-Yi Theatre, NY Stage & Film, and Juilliard.

Madhuri has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from USC, and a dual Master’s degree in Global Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and USC. She is an alumna of the Ma-Yi writers lab and the Center Theatre Group Writers Workshop, and a co-creator of the Shakespearean web series, Titus and Dronicus.

Madhuri was a staff writer for the upcoming HBO show The Nevers. She wrote the feature film adaptation of Evil Eye, produced by Blumhouse, and now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Aneesha Kudtarkar is a New York-based theatre director and graduate of the Yale School of Drama. She is a trained Indian Classical (Bharathanatyam) dancer. Her interests include new play development, theatre pedagogy, and the George W. Bush painting collection.

Aneesha was a Drama League Director’s Project Fellow in 2015, and the recipient of the 2019 Kauffman Memorial Prize at Yale.

Recent Projects include Romeo & Juliet (Two River Theater: Tiny Shakes), The Who and The What (TheaterWorks Hartford), Men on Boats (Southern Methodist University),  [Veil Widow Conspiracy] (National Asian American Theatre Company), LOCUSTS, Trouble in Mind, The Winter’s Tale (Yale School of Drama), and The Purple Flower (Yale Cabaret).

Broadway: Death of a Salesman (dir. Mike Nichols), Mrs. Warren’s Profession, A Delicate Balance (u/s). Off-Broadway/Regional includes Ivanov (Classic Stage Company dir. Austin Pendleton), Clive (The New Group, dir. Ethan Hawke), PTSD and Beirut Rocks (Ensemble Studio Theatre), All the Days (McCarter Theatre), Nora (Westport Country Playhouse), Arcadia (Potomac Theatre Project), A Map of Heaven (Denver Center Theatre), Absalom (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville), Against the Rising Sea (Queens Theatre in the Park). Stephanie wrote and performed in The Umbrella Plays (2008 NYC Fringe, winner Outstanding Play). TV/Film: Succession, New Amsterdam, FBI, The Blacklist, Mysteries of Laura, The Good Wife, Elementary, Law & Order, Inner Dragons, Everything is Ordinary. B.A. Middlebury College, M.F.A from the Graduate Acting program at NYU Tisch.

Long Wharf debut! Broadway: One Man, Two Guvnors, The Heiress, Mamma Mia! Off-Broadway: Our Town (Barrow Street Theater), The Library (The Public). Regional Theaters include: Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep., Old Globe San Diego, Pasadena Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Fest., Utah Shakespeare Fest. Select screen credits: The Post (Steven Spielberg, dir.), The Knick (Cinemax), Manifest (NBC), Invasion (Apple TV), Harlem (Amazon), The Deuce (HBO), Mosaic (HBO), Mr. Robot (USA), The Blacklist (NBC). Ben co-wrote the feature film, The Raven, starring John Cusack. He lives in New York with his wife Jessica, their two kids, Evelyn and Vivian, and Lucky, the dog.

Born in Pune, raised between Bombay and New Delhi – Keshav Moodliar is an actor based in New York City. He recently graduated with his MFA from The Juilliard School. Last seen Off-Broadway in Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure and Native Son. Film and TV credits include – Extrapolations (Apple TV), Chicken (Independent), SINK SANK SUNK (mini-series), In Defense of Civil Society (Independent), Untitled Paul Simms Pilot (FX) 

Avanthika Srinivasan is excited to be making her Long Wharf and NY theater debut. She is a recent graduate of A.C.T.’s MFA Program. Recent acting credits include Louka in Arms and the Man, India 3 and Daanya in Testmatch (A.C.T.’s Strand Theater), Sakina in The Fit (San Francisco Playhouse), Natasha in Three Sisters, and Laurencia in Fuente Ovejuna (A.C.T. MFA). Srinivasan also played Perdita in The Winter’s Tale at Livermore Shakespeare Festival and the role of Indian goddess Namagiri in Partition at Indra’s Net Theater in Berkeley. She holds a BA in French and theater from Princeton University.

avanthikasrinivasan.com This one’s for you, Melissa.

Junghyun Georgia Lee is a Korean born NYC based designer. She designed for NYTW, Ma-Yi, Public, Soho Rep, The Play Co., Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory, Syracuse Stage, Alliance and Children’s Theatre Company. She is a member of New Neighborhood. MFA, Yale School of Drama.

junghyungeorgialeedesign.com 

Phuong Nguyen (pronounced fu-ONG win) (she/they) (Costume Designer) is a costume designer with backgrounds in East Asian studies and Vietnamese history. Their work dissects different aspects of her and other marginalized groups’ heritage and identities, and tells stories absent from the “victors’” history books. They believe in the importance of being kind and respectful while enjoying the privilege of telling human stories. Selected theatre credits include Free Free Free Free (Exponential Festival); The Danube, Aesop’s Fables (Hangar Theatre); Salem: Post Mortem (The Muse Collective); Fun Home, You Will Get Sick (Yale School of Drama); Two Mile Hollow, Bodyssey, Alma, Lenny’s Fast Food Kids Gang (Yale Cabaret). They are graduating with an MFA in Costume Design from Yale School of Drama on May 23, 2022. Phuongtlnguyen.com

Daniela Hart is a New York City based sound designer and composer with an MFA in Sound Design from the Yale School of Drama. Selected theater credits include Choir Boy (Yale Rep); First Down (59e59); Fires In The Mirror (Baltimore Center Stage & Long Wharf Theater); Night Watch (Dorset Theater); Pleasure Machine (Colt Coeur); Vapor Trail (MIT Music & Theater Arts); Cadence Podcast (Season 3); The Masses Are Asses (Weslyan Unviersity); How to Save the World in 90 Minutes (Cherry Lane); Mr. Burns (Iseman Theater, Yale); Avital (Yale Cabaret); References to Salvador Dali…(ART, Harvard); Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet (Vermont Shakespeare); Neighborhood 3, Must Wash Hands (Rattlestick Theater); The Parlour (Soho Rep). Daniela is also a producer, editor and sound supervisor with her company www.UptownWorksNYC.com.