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Srila Nayak

Srila Nayak is a fellow at HowlRound and manages content on the journal's blog and newcrit sections. She has a Ph.D. in English literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University and a M.S. in journalism from Columbia University. 

Reflections on Full Stage USA
Essay

Reflections on Full Stage USA

5 November 2014

Emily Morse and Srila Nayak share insight on Full Stage USA's dedication to exploring new models of play creation and production. 

Pulling a New Rabbit Out of an Old Hat
Essay

Pulling a New Rabbit Out of an Old Hat

The Tempest at American Repertory Theater

22 May 2014

Srila Nayak reviews the American Repertory Theater’s production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and highlights how the production uses music, color-consious-casting, spectacle, and stage-magic.

Pulitzer Playwright Ayad Akhtar on Aristotle and Islam
Essay

Pulitzer Playwright Ayad Akhtar on Aristotle and Islam

11 May 2014

Srila Nayak shares an overview of Pulitzer prize-winning dramatist Ayad Akhtar's career. 

Photo from The Tank Man.
What Chimerica Tells Us About the Photograph
Essay

What Chimerica Tells Us About the Photograph

14 April 2014

Based on an actual photograph, the main action of Lucy Kirkwood’s play is an American photojournalist’s unyielding quest to unlock the mystery of a photograph taken by him during the 1989 student revolution and military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. In the photograph in question a slender man, who goes on to be labeled the “Tank Man,” stands in front of a line of military tanks rolling into the Square. While it is something of a truism that the theater is, as a character in Don Quixote says, “the mirror of human life” sometimes theater can serve as a path-breaking reflection on another art form.

Portrait of Amiri Baraka.
A "Ballot or Bullet" Art
Essay

A "Ballot or Bullet" Art

The Legacy of Amiri Baraka

24 February 2014

In his autobiography, Amiri Baraka, born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934, describes a stunned moment of self-discovery after reading a poem in the New Yorker. Baraka, then a 22-year-old aspiring poet, is confronted with a vast gulf between his reality and the sentiments and aesthetics of the poem, not to mention that of the New Yorker itself.

Portrait of Marianne Weems.
On the Builders
Essay

On the Builders

Marianne Weems in Conversation

9 February 2014

In this interview, Director Marianne Weems talk aesthetics, pedagogy, The Builders Association, and her two current plays on tour.

Portrait of Alex Beech.
Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening
Essay

Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening

Day Three

3 November 2013

Day three of the Latinx Theatre Commons asks for everyone to make a commitment to mentoring and being a mentee to each other in order to continue building community.

A woman holding the Puerto Rican flag.
Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening
Essay

Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening

Day Two

2 November 2013

Day two of the Latinx Theatre Commons results in a declared Latina/o Theatre Day in Boston, a quandary of if there needs to be Latina/o theatre, and the strength to make their own table.

Collage of theatre artists gathering and speaking at the From Scarcity to Abundance convening.
Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening
Essay

Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening

Day One

1 November 2013

The Latina/o Theatre Commons National Convening has finally arrived in Boston. 78 Latina/o artist converged together for the biggest meeting since 1986.

Portrait of Seamus Heaney.
"On the Far Side of Revenge"
Essay

"On the Far Side of Revenge"

The Plays of Seamus Heaney

25 October 2013

By 2003, Sophocles’ Antigone, a fifth century B.C. tragedy about a violent confrontation between a defiant young woman and an arrogant ruler, was one of the most widely adapted plays in Ireland.