A Conversation on Silence Between Friends: Abhishek Majumdar and Fawzia Afzal Khan

Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright, scenographer, and director working in India and internationally. His work has been produced and commissioned in leading theaters of the world including Royal Court Theatre London, Prithvi Theatre Mumbai, Ranga Shankara Bangalore, Deutsch Shauspielhaus Hamburg, Ruhrfest Recklinghausen, Théâtre du Soleil Paris, National Theatre London, San Francisco Opera, PEN World Voices, Internacionale Dramaturgie Festival Buenos Aires and PlayCo New York amongst others. He is a recipient of multiple awards including the International Theatremakers award New York, Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Award Delhi, The Shankar Nag Rangakarmi Award Bangalore, the Toto Funds the Arts Award, Segal Center Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts, Best Director in London Movie Awards, Best Director 8 and Hal/ Film Festival (Rome) Awards amongst others. He works in Theater, Film and Opera. His book of essays, Theater Across Borders is published by Bloomsbury International as part of the Theatermakers series and he has been published, performed and translated in Hindi, English, French, German, Czech, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri, and Spanish. He is the Artistic Director of Nalanda Arts Studio Bangalore and creative producer at New Voices Arts Project based in Bangalore. He is also Associate Professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi and the Program head of the Theater Program.

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a schol-art-ivist, engaging her scholarship and performance work in the service of social justice ideals. She is a Professor of English, a University Distinguished Scholar, and former Director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Montclair State University, NJ. She held a Visiting Professorship of the Arts at NYU in Abu Dhabi from 2016-18 and spent several semesters over the past two decades teaching at institutions of higher education in her native Pakistan, often as a Fulbright Fellow. She is the author of 6 books including one on Pakistani theatre and the women’s movement and a memoir about growing up in Pakistan.
She is a trained singer in the North Indo-Pakistani vocal classical tradition, a published poet and playwright, was a founding member and resident Sufi singer of the Compagnie Faim de Siecle, and has performed her one woman-show, Scheherazade Goes West: will the ‘Reel’ Muslim Woman Please Stand Up? at various locations around the world including the Smithsonian, Trinity College Dublin, the Brecht Forum NY, T2F in Karachi and the James Stewart Theatre, Princeton University. She and Shahid Nadeem have recently completed a 3 act play on TE Lawrence’s exploits in Lahore, Miranshah, and Kashmir after WW1. Her short play-in-progress, Palestinian/Pakistinian will be staged as a dramatic reading at the Budarz auditorium of Ossining Public Library by the Westchester Theatre Collective on September 27th.

She maintains a blog called www.travelingfeminista.com and her website can be accessed at www.fawziaafzalkhan.com