Shayok Misha Chowdhury

Shayok Misha Chowdhury (born December 22, 1984) is an Indian-American playwright, known for his works exploring Indian-American identity, such as Public Obscenities, which was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Early life

Chowdhury was born in Kolkata, India. His grandfather passed seven years before he was born, which inspired part of his play, Public Obscenities. He was raised in Boston, Massachusetts before moving to New York City.

Career

Chowdhury made his playwriting and directing debut with Mukhagni in 2020 in The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival. The piece explored themes of queerness, grief and the ritual of death with the actors performing nude.

Next, he wrote Public Obscenities, a play following a gay couple, one of whom grew up in Kolkata, returning there for research on queer dating in India. The main character of Choton was based on Chowdhury and his own experience coming back to his home country as a gay man. The play premiered at Soho Rep in 2023 to positive reviews, with The New York Times lauding the "uniformly excellent cast and the deliberate pacing of a confident playwright," naming the production a Critic's Pick.

For his work, Chowdhury was nominated for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Drama League Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play, along with the play receiving five Drama Desk Award nominations, winning for Outstanding Ensemble. In 2024, the show was then produced at Theatre for a New Audience and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C..

His 2026 play, Rheology, starred his mother Bulbul Chakraborty, a physicist, in a story about the bond between an artist son and a STEM-minded mother. The play opened at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway April 14, 2026, running through May 29 of the same year. The show received positive reviews, with The New York Times calling it a "delight", and was nominated for the 2026 Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Play and Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.

Chowdhury has also served as director for several notable productions, such as 2025's Prince Faggot by Jordan Tannahill, The Ziegfeld Files by Jesse Eisenberg and The Gospel at Colonus by Bob Telson and Lee Breuer on Little Island at Pier 55. For his direction of Prince Faggot, he was nominated for a Drama League Award and Lucille Lortel Award.

Personal life

Chowdhury is openly gay.

Stage credits

Awards and nominations