Staging south Asian diasporas

Staging South Asian Diasporas

The first generation of Asian American women playwrights at the University of Hawaii was at the forefront of the emergence of Asian American drama and women played an important role in the establishment of Asian American theatres across the U.S. In a similar vein, British women playwrights and theatre producers of South Asian descent have been highly influential. Yet despite their success, Gabriele Griffin speaks of a marginalization of Black and Asian women’s dramatic writing even within Black British cultural studies. This paper traces the influence of British Asian women playwrights, directors, actresses and theatre managers and their important contributions to the internationalisation of Britain’s dramatic canon and its theatrical landscape with a particular focus on the Kali Theatre Company in London. Founded in 1990 with the pronounced aim of promoting new writings by Asian women dramatists, Kali has since produced numerous plays on a wide range of topics and has contributed significantly to the development of new women writers in London and beyond.