9 Kinds of Silence

September 6–October 8, 2023
IndiaWorld Premiere
A Universal Voices Commission Premiering September 2023
Meet the Artists

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.

Jian Jung (Set and Costume Designer) from Korea.

Jung’s design has been acclaimed as ‘innovative’, ‘inventive’, ‘genius’ and ‘spectacular’ by major press such as The New York Times. While her productions range from classic masterpieces to new plays, her design always focuses on innovative delivery of the piece, provoking audience’s expectations.

Jung recently designed The Nosebleed by Aya Ogawa at Lincoln Center Claire Tow Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theater (DC), Ocean Filibuster at A.R.T (Boston), Kiss at Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), and Bodies They Ritual at the Wild Project with Clubbed Thumb. Other theater work has been in many NYC theaters including CSC, ART/NY, HERE, The Kitchen, Bushwick Starr, Abrons, Theater Row, Soho Rep, Target Margin, and Mabou Mines, Her international work has been in Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Korea. Her opera and musical work have been in Bard Fisher Center, Juilliard School, Wolf Trap Opera (VA), Long Beach Opera (CA), and Huntington Theater (Boston).

Jung received Edith Lutyens & Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Award for Aya Ogawa’s Ludic Proxy, and was nominated for Henry Hewes Design Award for Haruna Lee’s Suicide Forest. Her design in Venezuela was presented in Prague Quadrennial 2015.

Jung received an MFA in Theater Design from NYU, and an MFA in Environmental Design from Ewha Women’s University in Korea, where she was born and grew up. She teaches at NYU Tisch Design and Sarah Lawrence College.

M. Florian Staab (Composer and Sound Designer) based in Brooklyn, NY. Staab was born and raised in Germany and received a BA from Oberlin College and MFA from UIUC/Krannert Center. He is an associate artist with Sinking Ship Productions and teaches at Playwrights Horizons Theater School. His designs have been heard at the Public Theater, Irish Repertory Theatre, Harlem Stage, Trinity Repertory Company, City Theatre Pittsburgh, Center Theatre Group, Mint Theater Company, Pearl Theatre Company, The Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Drama League, New Saloon, Chicago Opera Vanguard and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Staab is a recording and mixing engineer and designs sound for narrative fiction podcasts. He also recently directed Bill Irwin’s On Beckett / In Screen for the camera.

Set in a military tent on the shore of a country that is winding down a multi-year war, the play is the story of a Mother who works for the homeland on intake for returning soldiers, and a Son returning from combat. We don't know if they are mother and son, we don't know their political beliefs. We do know that they have to discover, over the course of one night, the language to describe to each other what they've seen in the years the war has raged on in the name of nationalism, and a dictator has arisen. 9 Kinds of Silence deals with sound and silence as means of protest, control and subjugation. Majumdar explores our need, as nation states, to invent new enemies, and the extreme cost of nationalism that forces us to speak its language in a world where human silence is the last resort of authentic humanity.

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Written and Directed by

Abhishek Mujamdar

Set and Costume Design

Jian Jung

Sound Design

M. Florian Staub

Venue

122CC Second Floor Theater 150 1st Avenue New York, NY 10009