Sultans and Soldiers

I’m honored to share that Sultans and Soldiers, my short historical playwriting contest for Drexel University students that I’ve launched in close collaboration with the Bangalore Little Theatre in Karnataka, India, has received an IDEA Development, Education, and Cultivation Project Mini-Grant to support Westphal’s efforts in achieving the university’s goals for greater inclusion, diversity, equity, and anti-racism.

Westphal’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council determined that this project will positively contribute to, and have a notable impact on, advancing our goals of becoming a more diverse, equitable, inclusive and anti-racist college within Drexel University.

Sultans and Soldiers urges theatrical exploration of India’s little-known, incredible connection to the US Revolutionary War.

I’ve been trying to find a way to have Drexel interface with the Bangalore Little Theatre since 2015. I’m glad I didn’t give up and grateful that a viable path forward has finally appeared for all of us thanks to the formation of Drexel Westphal’s DEI Council.

This project was made possible due in part to the generous support of the Philadelphia Foundation, the Westphal Dean’s Office of I.D.E.A., and the Westphal DEIC.

#FACON23!

The Fulbright Association Conference schedule is live! I’m honored to be jetting to Denver later this month to rep my alma mater NYU Tisch School of the Arts where I also teach part-time, and grateful to have received a Tisch Adjunct Professional Development Grant to attend. I’ll be giving a 60-minute talk entitled “Happy Accidents: How a Mistakenly Published Play Forced Reforms in British India”.

My abstract: In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against malnourished Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Peter Grant. Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change and food security to Indian laborers? These events are well-known but have often been mythologized and misrepresented. Stanley will provide his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the day.

“City Symphonies” in Kolkata

Kolkata friends, I hope you’ll consider stopping by The British Council‘s Kolkata office this Friday 9/15 at 6pm for a screening and discussion of the great documentary filmmaker and professor Subha Das Mollick‘s beautiful documentary “City Symphonies” @ 16 Camac Street.