Yet issues from Usha’s past haunt her and she’s worried that Pallavi will fall in with the wrong man.

Like any mother anywhere, Usha has long been concerned about her daughter finding the right man. So, I didn’t get to go very far after all.Usha has returned to India while her 29-year-old daughter remains in the United States. About women being complicit – and women kicking ass. About citizens waking up to oppression, about the tragedy of inertia, about the urgency of sacrifice. What could be further than the harems of the Mughal Empire in the 17th century? And yet, the play wound up being about a once-mighty empire facing the consequences of hubris and injustice. “I wrote House of Joy because I desperately wanted to escape from modern day America. She is a member of the Ma-Yi writers lab and the Ars Nova Play Group in New York and a co-creator of the Shakespearean web series, Titus and Dronicus. She 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.

Her plays have also been developed or showcased at Center Theatre Group, the Old Globe, the Kennedy Center, the Hedgebrook Playwrights Festival (in conjunction with Seattle Rep) and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her play A Nice Indian Boy had its world premiere at East West Players and has been produced in Chicago by the Rasaka Theatre Company and EnActe Arts in San Francisco. The Alliance Theatre then commissioned and produced two further plays – Bucket of Blessings and Antigone, Presented by the Girls of St. It is published by Samuel French and is now being produced around the country and abroad. She is the 2013/14 winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting contest held by the Alliance Theatre for her play In Love and Warcraft, for which they did the world premiere production. Her play Queen had its World Premiere in April 2017 at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago, was nominated for a Jeff Award for Best New Play and made the 2017 Kilroy’s List. She is currently developing Evil Eye (a commission from Audible), Hockey Play (a commission from South Coast Rep), and Miriam For President, which will be produced at Victory Gardens in 2019, directed by Chay Yew. Madhuri Shekar is a playwright based in New York City and a current fellow of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Evil eye madhuri shekar