After Making History in Bangladesh, She’s Getting Applause in New York
When Shayok Misha Chowdhury wrote the character of Shou for his new bilingual play, “Public Obscenities,” about a couple who interviews queer locals in Kolkata, India, he was “super worried” about casting the role.
The performer would not only need to be of the appropriate gender but also a Bangla speaker with the right “linguistic fluency”to capture the character, who speaks “exuberantly and forthrightly and confidently,” he told me recently.
Shou identifies as kothi, an Indian gender that encompasses a breadth of expressions, Chowdhury said. So he reached out to a friend for advice: a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is “very in the sort of Bangali queer and trans space.” After the professor mentioned Tashnuva Anan Shishir, Chowdhury searched her name online, and several questions came into his head: Is she even in New York?
Would she be interested in auditioning? When he posted a casting call on Instagram, and Anan responded, a plan started to coalesce.
