This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Chiang Ng: Why don't you introduce yourself and be like, hi, this is my name and this is what I'm...

[0:05] Arpita Mukherjee: So Arpita is doing... I just, like, said I wanted you to introduce yourself. Never mind, that's going to be edited out. This is East Side Story, and I'm your host, Chiang Ng.

[0:20] Chiang Ng: Each week, I sit down with an Asian or Asian American artist working in the New York theater scene and excavate their life story, how they grew up, how they got their start in theater, as well as projects they've worked on and upcoming work that we should anticipate. This week's guest is Arpita Mukherjee. She is the artistic director of Hypokrit Theatre Company, the book writer of Monsoon Wedding, a 2018 O'Neill Directing Fellow and Lincoln Center Directing Fellow, and her resume is basically too long to list. I'm working with Arpita on my musical, The Golden Threshold, and her relentless insight into dramaturgy is remarkable. I'm extremely thankful to be able to call her my collaborator and friend, and it's a gift to be working alongside her.

[1:03] Arpita Mukherjee: Hi, my name is Arpita Mukherjee, and I am the artistic director of Hypokrit Theatre Company and the founder... I always keep forgetting that. It's like I was hired or something. But I'm the founder and artistic director of Hypokrit Theatre Company. I am also a director, and I work on primarily new work, new musicals and new plays. Yeah, that's kind of what I do.

[1:28] Chiang Ng: I love that you're like so nervous and you're like fiddly.

[1:33] Arpita Mukherjee: I don't like talking about myself specifically.

[1:39] Chiang Ng: Why? You're so amazing. Like you do so much good stuff and like you need to talk about people need to know who you are.

[1:45] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm here. I'm not scared at all. Let's dig deeper. Talk a little bit about your childhood. So before that, how long have you been living in the city?

[1:54] Arpita Mukherjee: You know, someone asked me that a couple of days ago, and I was like, oh my god, I've been living in the city for eight years.

[2:02] Chiang Ng: Wow. And where did you move from?

[2:07] Arpita Mukherjee: I moved from DC, DC area, northern Virginia, to be specific for those Nova folks out there. Yeah. And so eight years. And how do you find the city? Do you like it?

[2:14] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, the city is my home. I mean, I'm a New Yorker for the good and the bad. Like I say that as like kind of a matter of pride, but also just like, I think the city encompasses both whatever strengths I have, but also my flaws. So I say that not as like a badge of honor, but just like a reality that this is my city. It's where I feel most at home. I feel really neurotic and out of place in most other places. With the exception probably being Bombay is probably the other place I feel Mumbai closer. Doing too much golden threshold. Yeah. But, but yeah, I love it. I love it. I never want to leave.

[3:01] Chiang Ng: Let's go like all the way back to like early Arpita times. Early times. Where did you grow up? And how big was your family? What was that experience like?

[3:10] Arpita Mukherjee: I grew up, I was born and I grew up in New Delhi. And I mean, I lived in a nuclear family. My parents were living in New Delhi, but we're part of a much bigger extended family, which was sort of all over the country. I mean, I'm Bengali. I'm from the eastern part of India. But my family was partly in Calcutta, partly in that at that time in Patna. But, and it was, we used to get together for holidays, but I was to say I was definitely a New Delhi kid. And grew up really like anglophilia bringing like reading Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton. But it was a very performing arts loving family and arts loving family where we went to concerts, listened to Indian classical music. And I studied singing with my grandma, Tagore music, Bengali music.

And, and like, my dad was really into films and music and theater. And so, it was just, I was just from a very young age, very exposed to the arts. I mean, in Delhi, the culture was not as arts oriented as my family who was from Calcutta. So, every time we'd go visit, the kids never had time, because they would go from school to like drawing, like art class, and then like music class, and then dance class. And I'm like, what do you do? And I was like, watch TV. But it was my family was very, very artistically inclined. And it was, that was made up a big part of how we interacted and hung out with each other. So, I think that's something, even though nobody did it as a profession, it was really something that defined how I identified as a human being was the arts were a big part of my life.

[5:01] Chiang Ng: Do you have siblings?

[5:03] Arpita Mukherjee: I have one sister. She's a doctor. She's the good one. And, but yeah, but we also dance. So, when I got married, she did an Odyssey dance. And so, you know, it was also, it's a kind of a stereotype. I remember people telling me like, Indians do everything. And I was like, well, arts are just like a part of how you interact in your community, you dance, you sing. So, I think it's a part of everyone's life.

[5:31] Chiang Ng: Yeah. When did you move to the States?

[5:34] Arpita Mukherjee: I moved to the States in 96.

[5:37] Chiang Ng: Oh, wow. That's a while ago.

[5:38] Arpita Mukherjee: 96 now.

[5:40] Chiang Ng: I mean, it was long ago. It was like 23 years ago.

[5:43] Arpita Mukherjee: 23 years ago. Wow.

[5:45] Chiang Ng: Wow. Mental math. Hashtag Asian.

[5:50] Arpita Mukherjee: The funniest thing is, I was just gonna say 13. And then I was like, how old am I? How could I have moved here 13 years ago? It doesn't make sense. Yeah.

[5:59] Chiang Ng: So, did you go to school here as well? Like, did you do part of like your, I don't know what the system is in India. Is it primary, secondary, or is it like elementary high school? Is it the American system?

[6:04] Arpita Mukherjee: It's primary, secondary.

[6:11] Chiang Ng: So, the British system.

[6:12] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, it's the British system. I came here in, I was still, that was still elementary school here.

[6:19] Arpita Mukherjee: That would have been towards kind of the end of primary school, you know, fourth, fifth grade. And then I had the joy of being able to go to middle school, which nobody I think really wants. It's kind of a nightmare, like seventh, eighth grade, and like a different school. And, but I had a really, really hard time adjusting. School was very tough for me. I was just raised, first of all, I think, in India, you are really, you really develop emotionally very close, almost charged relationships. Your friendships are very, very close. It's very intimate, I would say, so I had these, there was a group of us, and we were just such close friends. And in India, also, what was really valued was that you were good at school, and you were good in the arts, that meant you were a popular kid.

That's so, you know, I, it was like, every year, the rankings would come out and like the top three students, which I think is terrible and shouldn't be there. But those were the most kind of admired kids. So, being good in school was, and I wouldn't say I was that good in school in India, but that was something that was admired.

[7:36] Chiang Ng: When you say you weren't that good in school, were you like number two?

[7:39] Arpita Mukherjee: I was like, usually like two or three, and it was really upsetting. And my best friend, we used to always be number one. And, and I remember when our, and you, you know, you do your exams, and you get our pay, you get your papers back, and I'd get like 49 out of 50, and she'd have gotten like 49 and a half. So the thing that separated the three, you know, there wasn't much.

[7:57] Chiang Ng: The most ancient thing you would say, like, I was not that great in school, I was just number two.

[8:01] Arpita Mukherjee: Oh, my God, so relatable.

[8:05] Arpita Mukherjee: You know, I mean, and the thing was, I have to say that I was just, I have a very, still a very good memory. And so, I was a very, very indisciplined student, I just did not have any discipline. And no,

[8:18] Chiang Ng: And she still got 49 out of 50.

[8:20] Arpita Mukherjee: But I had a really good memory. So I would just, I would just be able to remember things really well. But, and, you know, you were really supposed to excel, you, you were encouraged to excel, not fit in. I know people may not think that about Asian communities. But the thing that drives us that everyone's like, there's a million, a billion people like you, so you have to stand out. And when I moved to the US, it was immediately, I was a, you know, still had an accent. Obviously, dressed in a certain kind of way. Also, I need to have uniforms. So clothes are not, you don't think about what you're going to wear every day. It's not, you know, and already at sort of like, 10, 11, there's fashion, there's like, what brand you're wearing. I mean, it was very, very culture shock in a way that I just, I just knew how to like, go to school, hang out with my friends, and study. Those were the pillars of my life.

[9:20] Chiang Ng: Not like, so Asian, but also so true. I mean, Singapore is also a British colony. So we had, well, was a British colony. So we also had uniforms, we also had like structure and rigor. And of course, everyone expected you to excel in school. But once again, I think, I mean, we're not going to go into that. But like the whole idea of like standardized testing, and like, that is a certain way of doing things. And I think it worked for certain people, but it definitely didn't work for everybody. But I mean, if you succeeded in that, you would find, you know, quote, unquote, success, right? Yeah, in the society that we were in. Yeah. So I think it's that's something very similar. Yeah, Singapore.

Yeah, I think. But here, I felt that there wasn't in, I was very ahead in everything when I came to the US, super ahead in math. I was also a really fast reader. Because you just have to read and memorize so much more in India. I was used to read, you know, the homework assignments, I'd get home, and like, in an hour, I'd be like, done. And my dad was like, you know, so but you know, what happened is I was so ostracized for it. And so disliked for being ahead or raising my hand, that I forced myself into being more mediocre.

[10:32] Arpita Mukherjee: Oh, my. So by in about a year and a half, I was just like, everyone, you know, I didn't. I didn't push myself because I think I've always been someone that I think that's why I do arts, I need community and people around me to thrive. I'm not kind of like, you know, a loner, and I'll just do my old thing and just be really great at it, which a lot of kids, I kind of envy those kids, because I think I came really ahead in things, in especially school, but just had a real intellectual curiosity that I kind of, instead was like, oh, my God, if I like vacuum, I remember my parents used to have like, okay, if you want to make more pocket money, which was like, not is not a thing. And, you know, because I wanted to go shopping, they were just like, you have to.

And there was a dollar we'd get a fee vacuum the whole house. So my sister would just keep vacuuming the house over and over again, just so we could buy like, at that time was Abercrombie or something. I mean, we had such like, when I look back at it, I was like, wow, or I could have just read more books during that time, but did not. So I were becoming more and more American, I was becoming very, like more and more American, we'd watch all the TV shows, because so that our accent would go away, you know, and things like that. And I had then also completely lost touch with sort of like, more the classical arts, Indian arts. The only thing I stayed connected with the whole time was Bollywood.

I never lost Bollywood. It was like the one thing that I would still watch every Bollywood film. I don't know, I've always just been really fascinated. It was always such a dreamscape in a way or maybe it was it was Bollywood films were just still helping me escape how lonely I felt here is probably what it was. And it was a way to connect with culture that was most accessible. It was also the thing I think people don't realize about India is that Indians are super diverse, you know, and I came from a particular Bengali really traditional arts, you know, classical arts culture, but most of the kids I was meeting didn't come from that they came from more like Bollywood or folk or, you know, kind of, and so what our common language even for as Indian Americans was, hey, did you go see this Indian movie with, you know, all the parents and the kids would go to the local Indian movie theater and watch it. And, you know, so it was also the our shared experience, despite we all spoke different regional languages. So it was like this one thing that united us.

[13:00] Chiang Ng: That's so beautiful, because it's like, you know, I know, this is also a stereotype of me saying this, but a lot of people view like, for example, Indian people, and it's like, oh, you're all the same. You're all Indian. Yeah, like you must. Yeah, so much in common.

[13:10] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of commonality in terms of like being Asian being a certain race, you know, but then there's also so much that differentiates us. Yeah, we make up a lot of the world. So of course, we're, you know, gonna be really varied and different. And I think that, or, you know, when people are like, the zoo, like the people will ask me questions about, you know, Indian cuisine is chicken tikka masala, or whatever, you know, that I grew up.

[13:38] Chiang Ng: It's also like, not real, isn't it? Like, yeah, invented here.

[13:41] Arpita Mukherjee: It's invented in British. Sorry, in British. I'm tired. Invented in the UK by a British man, that's what I wanted to say, who wanted to serve in make Indian food more palatable for Brits.

[13:54] Chiang Ng: Yeah. And now it's eaten everywhere. And the closer thing, the better dish you want to look for and is a good test for an Indian restaurant is if they have butter chicken. Butter chicken is a North Indian dish that is par, like far, far, far, far, far more delicious.

[14:44] Cheeyang: You went through high school, middle school, high school here. And did you do a lot of like performing arts, like American performing arts when you were in the high school? No?

[14:52] Arpita Mukherjee: No, I didn't do. Well, I took I took a drama, I took drama in middle school. And I, my great, my best friend in middle school was Christina Gaddy, who now sings all over the world. Shut, shut, shut out. Yeah, Christina, she does Postmodern Jukebox. Yeah, she was my best friend in middle school. That's amazing. And do you still keep in touch?

[15:16] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, we totally keep in touch. And she and we used to talk about musical theatre a lot and theatre and she she was kind of really a fan of old Hollywood films, you know, and I realized that many Bollywood films were plagiarized from old Hollywood, old Hollywood films through hanging out with her. But we used to like, you know, and that was that was sort of some connection I had, but I was very much supposed to become a doctor. It was it was ordained. I was good. I was good in science, math. I wasn't bad at it. So there was no reason to really not do that. But I wasn't excited by it. But it was only high school, kind of late high school that I felt that, but I had no idea what to do, because there was no one that looked like me, right, doing it.

[16:07] Cheeyang: That is so interesting, because this is like, so real. I mean, I mean, there are people who look like you when you're back in your home country, right?

[16:12] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, I mean, everyone in India, it's kind of like a homogenous society where like, the people you see in the media there are, you know, Indian people, but like in America, that's a completely different situation.

[16:26] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. And like, I definitely excelled in science and math, and I was like, supposed to be a lawyer, didn't do it. Like, that was like the first blow to my parents. Yeah. And then like, when, like the whole, like, it's crazy. But I'm also like, isn't very stereotypical? Is it like, because we're Asian, that's why we have to like, be doctors and be lawyers? Is that like, I know, it's a huge stereotype. But then part of the stereotype is that it's true.

[16:49] Arpita Mukherjee: Like, yeah, I think part of that. I think what's worth investigating in that stereotype is why that may have come to be, you know, and I think part of that, part of the reason for that is how we come mostly from colonized nations, you know, we come mostly from nations where they saw that there were certain positions of power, you know, in India, they're a big thing is becoming an IS officer. It's sort of like a civic government position. What is it called again?

[17:24] Arpita Mukherjee: IS officers. They're sort of like, it's like you take a civil service exam and you and you can do it. It's they also kind of like run, I'm probably messing this up. I probably don't know this exactly. But they're also kind of like run the police departments and the sort of like criminal investigation department and you have to do really well on certain exams to do it. That's a hangover from the British, but it's still really in a place where you would say doctor, engineer, it's really that's a really, really important.

[17:54] Cheeyang: That is so interesting that you like, I didn't even think about this. I'm thinking a lot about what you just said in terms of we come from colonized nations, and it's a leftover situation. Because we're seeking that power that control. And yeah, and that's like the path towards success, because that seems like what is successful. That was that was literally left behind by the British.

[18:16] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. Yeah, I think and you know, a financial power, right, is is something you want to seek. And so I think that's really where that comes from. It's not just some like, ordained genetic thing that like Asians want to be, you know, that's, I think it's worth investigating. It's an easy stereotype to make when you've been the community that has had the privilege to choose whether you want it to be doctored, you know what I mean? But it's, it's when you look at it, it's because resources were taken from when when the imperialists took resources that took away people's ability to dream. So when you rebuild a nation, or you know, you build a nation, it's it's not everything is not available to you, things have been taken from you things have, you know, there was infrastructure built to but and also, there's no way to imagine any of these colonized nations as not post-colonial as a not affected culturally, by colonization of what is class and what is what is success and hierarchy, right?

[19:29] Cheeyang: A hundred percent, like, even the conversations nowadays that are revolving around, I mean, gay rights, LGBT rights and, and trans people, like, just the conversation of these have always existed in India. And they were taken away because there were Western influences imposed upon it. And then it's like, the West tells you this is wrong.

[19:47] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. And then you like you adopt that, you know, that thought process, and you'd be like, Oh, yeah, that is wrong. And you have laws that are, you know, residual from the British rule, and they are still in effect in some countries, okay, Singapore, and then India just like recently, you know, decriminalized homosexuality. And that's very interesting that a lot of people are like, well, it was never criminalized. To begin with, it was because the West came in and criminalized it. That's why there's this whole process, right? So it's like, it is kind of like the process of like decolonizing.

[20:22] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, yeah. That's really well put. People talk about this with Indian and gender, of course, to, you know, rights for women. And it's really interesting, because there's, if you trace it back, part of a lot of the decline in existing women's rights happened when colonization happened. And just the idea of actually even sexuality and sensuality and sort of building laws around that is super British. It's like, you know, the idea of the blouse that goes with the sari. I love telling the story, because like saris were never supposed to be worn with blouses. The Brits invented the blouse, because they got too distracted by the women in saris, you know, without wearing blouse. So there's all these beautiful photos of my grandma just like wearing a sari. She's not wearing a blouse, you know. And so, and like, that's where the blouse, you know, to wear it under it comes from. So the idea of even legislating a woman's body is definitely very, very colonial.

[21:29] Cheeyang: Oh my god, I'm just like having like, kind of like an epiphany in terms of like, how many countries have Britain personally affected, even America, right? Like, just like across the world. How many countries who are now sovereign, they have literally affected.

[21:46] Arpita Mukherjee: But I wouldn't say like, it's all for the worst, you know, like, that's a whole other conversation.

[21:52] Cheeyang: Oh yeah, that's a really complicated thing.

[21:54] Arpita Mukherjee: So complicated.

[21:55] Cheeyang: Well, I think it's mostly for the worst. But as most things that are happen in the world, they are, they, they have some, but you know, when people say like, Oh, but they give us the railroads. I'm like, it kind of assumes that like, India would have never built railroads. Like how, you know, a sophisticated, a civilization that was so highly sophisticated, could have probably figured out how to build a railroad, you know. So in a way, when people say that of, you know, brought education, I'm like, well, it brought a certain type of education, people were still being educated in India. And in some ways, didn't help necessarily some of the other things. But anyway, it's a complicated relationship. But I don't think it's like, hmm, maybe it would have been worse if they didn't colonize us. I reject that completely.

[22:47] Cheeyang: Right. I mean, it's a totally different, well, we can't imagine it, first of all. Well, maybe someone should write something that's like, completely that, right? It's like, there's the show, like, The Man in High Castle, if like, the Soviets won, and what would the world be like? Maybe someone should, you know, you heard it here first, I renounce my idea, you can go write it, right? Write something like, what if the world was never colonized in the first place? What would that be? What a great play. Oh my god, maybe I should write that.

[23:14] Arpita Mukherjee: Write that play. Here we go. Here we go.

[23:16] Cheeyang: I mean, that's very interesting. I think that's very interesting, especially thinking about how nowadays, when we, you know how, okay, this is something that I grew up thinking, because I was educated, like, there was a lot of Western influence, with a lot of, like, Eastern influence in my life. I'm literally a walking, like, dichotomy, and like, just everything is fighting against each other.

[23:34] Arpita Mukherjee: A post-colonial figure, perhaps?

[23:39] Cheeyang: Just like, so raw, like, so many opposing thoughts. And I wonder, like, you know how we, like, see colonies or, like, people who, people who are just, like, not in the cities, who, like, still live in non-technology, like, not influenced by technology. And then we were like, why are they doing, like, people sometimes will be like, why are they doing that? Why are they not part of the 21st century? Why are, who's to say that they don't have a good life? Who's to say that they have not found what they wanted in life, and in that society, in that community that they built?

[24:11] Arpita Mukherjee: And who's to say they are not being inventive, you know, or that they don't, that their culture and their practices don't have progress? I feel like for, in most of the world, and this actually, I think about this a lot when I think about climate, is that I think it's a fundamental shift of what we think is valuable in our life, and what we are making progress towards, you know, and if it's amenity, and ease, and luxury, which have been really the modes in which West has led the path, and this is progress, you know, having a car is, like, has led the way, it makes me wonder if it's, if that's truly progress, or if other cultures have been inventive in other ways, in terms of how they use resources, right? And that is a different kind of progress, but perhaps teaches us something about existing in this world that is useful.

[25:10] Cheeyang: So I'd be super interested in that play, too, you know, and just how a nation that has never been colonized would think about progress, and create its own chart of progress, you know?

[25:23] Arpita Mukherjee: I'm, like, getting very inspired, like, so inspired. This is, like, great. But also, it's, like, so paradoxical, because we are recording in a recording studio, using all this modern technology to talk about progress and tradition, and it's just so hard to exist right now. It's like, what is right? You can't, you just, they are all in opposition.

[25:45] Arpita Mukherjee: And this tension is not resolvable, you know, in the way that, I studied post-colonialism a lot, so I think about this a lot. But even the tension of what it means that we tell our stories in English, you know? There's been a huge movement in India toward, especially in theater, to not do theater in the English language. And it's a sort of decolonization of theater, but then what does it mean for people like us who were educated in English, you know?

[26:13] Cheeyang: I think that tension is where a lot of drama is, and worth mining, but I don't think it's resolvable in any way, because we can't live like that. That's an interesting thought experiment, even, but, like, we can't exist. And how does a person who is actually post-colonial dream up a world, right? Like, how do we?

[26:37] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, like, no one has lived through that, really.

[26:40] Cheeyang: How do we dream up a world in which that was not how we lived? Or, you know, it's super interesting and kind of...

[26:48] Arpita Mukherjee: I would love to go down that road.

[26:51] Cheeyang: You're going down it right now, I feel like. I see it.

[26:55] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah.

[26:58] Cheeyang: And that's, I think, a perfect segue into, like, theater.

[26:59] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah.

[27:03] Cheeyang: So, like, when did you start doing theater the way that you're doing it right now?

[27:12] Arpita Mukherjee: Oh, the way I'm doing it right now? I think probably some, what, 10 years ago or so in D.C. I was...

[27:13] Cheeyang: Did you go to college in D.C.?

[27:15] Arpita Mukherjee: I went to college at UVA, and I studied English, so it was really not... I really thought I was going to be a fiction writer.

[27:21] Cheeyang: Oh, wow. I mean, you are a writer, and you are writing fiction, too. Not, like, books and novels, but...

[27:29] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, I was... Because going back to this, like, who looks like me, the only people I could think of was Arundhati Roy had just written God of Small Things, which is probably the single most impactful story that I have, like, read or experienced in my life.

[27:46] Cheeyang: Can you say that title again?

[27:47] Arpita Mukherjee: It's God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

[27:50] Cheeyang: Never read it. I'm going to go read it now.

[27:52] Arpita Mukherjee: It's amazing. And she's an amazing writer, and she has also a new second novel that's great, The Ministry of Unhappiness.

[28:00] Arpita Mukherjee: And Jhumpa Lahiri, who wrote The Interpreter of Maladies, her short story collection, won the Pulitzer.

[28:06] Cheeyang: Wow.

[28:07] Arpita Mukherjee: And so there were two writers who were really... had captured the world's imagination. And so I was like, I could do that.

[28:16] Arpita Mukherjee: And so I really wanted to be a fiction writer, and in one of the courses I was taking at UVA, we had to write a play, and I wrote a play. And I submitted that play to a festival. The Smithsonian was...

[28:28] Arpita Mukherjee: Was it like the turning point for you? Like college. It was a calling point. I think at that moment, I was just wanting to do that. But I definitely had no clue how to do it professionally. So I started interning assisting Washington Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare Theatre Company, and was particularly interested in Classics, but DC was also a Classics town at that time of course. So that was sort of what I did, but very quickly I decided that there were certain stories I wanted to tell. And so I started a company, and a lot of the community who had those jobs, who were doing theatre as a hobby, well they had great jobs, they were making a lot of money. So they would say, okay, we'll produce this and fund this.

So it was sort of, that's how, it was really like, I feel like I'm much more a startup entrepreneur than someone that really believed, I think I never believed that I would come up in an institution. I could just see that, you know, I just, A, because I didn't know how to play that game, because fundamentally as an artist, I knew where I was interested and where I was really strong and what I was really passionate about, and it didn't align. Nobody at that time especially cared about, like you could not go into an institution and say EDI or inclusion or diversity, which is a whole other thing. I mean, all these buzzwords that are happening right now, which I also have a lot of feelings about, but nobody cared.

They were just, they really didn't care. And I don't think I had the language for it. The language I had was like, this is this great story that I think is theatrical, and I think there's an audience for it, because you're not, I have this, I come from this huge community that never goes to the theatre. And that was kind of the move to then start this company and start making work that way. And some of that was taking classics, some of that was doing new work, but always supported and fully funded and supported and really helped the company thrive was the South Asian community for sure. So it helped me start directing at a very young age and just failing a lot, but it would just be fine, because it was just like, oh, hi, auntie, hello, uncle, you know, and they were like, great, good job.

But I was learning, I was getting better, but I was doing it by doing it, and like in a very stakes way. Then I somehow was really fortunate enough to start working on Monsoon Wedding, which was, again, a big move into like, all of a sudden, I was working on a major commercial musical, first as an associate director, now I'm the book writer. So it just, things just started happening, because I just said yes to things. I would just, because I wanted to do so many different things, and I think I didn't even think I would direct musicals, and now I work on so many new musicals. It's so exciting, but also I'm like, wow. And so it was, it's been kind of, it was a lot of things that I think kind of came together a year and a half ago, when I started realizing that I wanted some space outside of the company to direct to, and just wanted to see if, oh my god, this is gonna sound terrible, but like if everyone else thought I was good at this, I think you do reach that, I mean, directing, now I know that I'm doing well for my age, but like, I started very young, and I've been doing it for a while, and you kind of sometimes are like, is this thing gonna happen?

You know, and then you kind of need like a fellowship or something to come and be like, no, keep doing it. Like, do you think there's something here? I mean, we- It needs to be in a conversation with an audience, anything, it's not created in a vacuum. Yeah, unless you're just, then you're just journaling, which is fine, which is great, if you please keep journaling, I'm not saying it's not important, but it doesn't, journaling doesn't need validation, but creating a piece of art does, and that always, and you know, it makes it tricky, because who are you seeking this validation from, you know? We won't talk about that. A whole other conversation. But I think, for me at least, I think the word validation, maybe the word is like, I love to use the word conversation, I love to use the word conversation, because I personally don't need to be validated by an audience, but I want my work to have a conversation, to start a conversation, to engage in a conversation with whoever who's seeing the work, right?

I thought we were getting real in this podcast, because I definitely seek validation. You know, but I think what has changed for me is who I seek validation from. I've realized that now I have a group of people that I will go to and be like, because my work is rigorous, but the only way I can enact that rigor is if I'm getting feedback about what my work is doing and how it's operating, but now I know who that is. Right, I mean, as a young artist, it's very hard to do that, because it's like, you hear all these feedback from all these places, and you're like, you want to incorporate all these things, but truly, how many of them do you really want to listen to? And how many people do you respect enough to want to listen to their stuff?

And really, I think it all has to do with trust, you know, if you don't, you have to trust this person enough to be like, give me the tea, give, like, tell me everything that is good, that is bad. And sometimes it's hard to get that kind of validation, once again, right, quote unquote validation from people that maybe you don't completely trust, and maybe you shouldn't be listening to that. Yeah, whose own agendas might, are different, or their own critical framework. I mean, that's something we're talking about more now than we have before, which I really appreciate because, you know, you do, everybody has a critical framework. Yeah, everyone has personal biases, everyone comes from, you know, you bring literally your entire life experience into the room when you're critiquing something, that like, does it, do I want to, do I want all that baggage?

When I'm looking at the work. Well, and if you just realize, you know, I mean, we just had, we just talked about the golden threshold. And I said, this is my critical framework, you know, if you if someone comes to you with that, you know, what their point of view is, and then you can listen or not, but it's not about, it's not that my critical framework, or that it doesn't exist, I feel like we've been operating in a world where like critics or gatekeepers have some kind of understanding of what good work is, that is not tied to what their understanding of what good work is. Oh, 100%. And so, so I just think like, that's, that's something I've kind of evolved to, and not that everybody I want to hear from has the same, of course, they don't, but that I've kind of cultivated a community where I know, will give you different viewpoints, will give me different viewpoints, but the viewpoints I want, and, and I know will be and know what I also recognize what I'm trying to do, right?

Like, we learn to give feedback that way, what is the project of the piece instead of, I think it should be more the story of mom, because, you know, I see mom, I see myself in mom. I mean, going down this like critique road, I think that is something that not everybody's equipped with. I think it's a learning process, because I think a lot of people don't have experience talking about new work, literally, the point that you just made was so important. What is the intention of the writer? What is the intention of the creator? And whatever you're saying, does it serve the intention or not? And also, as the person receiving the critique, you have to also process that, right? It's like, is this going in line with what I'm trying to accomplish, or it's going against the grain?

If like someone tells you this should be about this complete other thing, and it has literally nothing to do with what your intention is, maybe you don't want to listen to that. Yeah, totally. Totally. But it's also really hard to like, toe the line of like, I am just adamant and like, so stubborn to listen to any critique, and being like, this is what I'm trying to go for, and whether I'm successful or not. I think those, that makes it, I think, I always, I always say this, but like, writing is easy. Anyone can write, but not everyone can rewrite. And not everyone can go through the writing process, and literally examine every single word that you put on the page, every single detail that you're trying to go for, and accept the critical eye on the work.

That was a lot. I want to say like, that was a lot, wasn't it? Yeah. We got like, into colonialism and shit. You said deep. I was like, okay. But if you had to give yourself an advice, right? Like if you think about little Arpita, who just moved to the States, you know, 23, that was when we said, 23 years ago, what would you tell her? Oh my god. That's such a hard question. I don't, there's so much, actually, I'm having trouble whittling it down. I think what I would tell her is that she doesn't need to be like, the pretty blonde girl. I think that's what I really wanted. I really want it to be like, I remember all the popular girls names. I really want it. It's so, like, I feel like it's a part, I don't know why I'm even sharing this.

I don't even think that many people know how badly I wanted to be a popular girl. I think that's human, you know, like validation. It goes back to validation, doesn't it? And look, as I'm talking about this, I'm like, oh my god, what does this mean about my life right now? Do I just want to be a pop? Like, is this, oh my god, okay, I'm stressed. But no, but you literally just said, you don't have to be that blonde, popular girl. Yeah, I like colored my, oh my god, I did so many crazy things. But yeah, I think, I was not even like a popular Indian American kid. I remember wanting that really bad. I'm not going to call her out because we're not close anymore. But like, it was just like a popular girl and everybody was like wanting to hang out, you know, with her and I felt like my life was very wrapped around still academic success.

But it was, you know, it was lonely. And then I started kind of becoming friends with this kind of, she's still my best friend, Taz, you know, and this kind of like group that was like kind of rebellious and like, you know, didn't like really care about school, like skipped school all the time. And it's like when I found my kind of family, you know, my first kind of friend group and it was like, great, but I was still kind of young and they were like seniors and they were, you know, graduating. So I started like going to clubs like drink, I was a bad teen. I was like, rebellious, terrible teenager, like, I can't like I think my dad still looks at me sometimes and he's like, you did something like with your life because I would skip school.

I was, you know, come home super late, curfew, like just absolute, terrible rebel. Do you think that was like an attempt to fit in basically, like making yourself mediocre and then doing all these things that what you thought would make you popular? Yeah, and hurt my parents terribly, you know, I got a job. My dad just wanted me to excel. He would always tell me that he was like, okay, even if you want to be, you know, do the arts, I'm not seeing you, like, do things towards that, you know, it was more that you're a rebel without a cause and what are you? What is it that you're really like running towards or wanting? And I didn't know, I think I was just like wanting to that momentary of like, oh my god, what if I got invited to all the parties, you know, and kind of thing that I was really more I started driving really, I wanted all the things to be cool, like, that was really what I wanted.

And once I became friends with Taz and that crew, it went, it started going away. And then by the time I went to college, it really, by the time I went to college, I was just like, oh, that was dumb, you know, it gets better, guys, it gets better, it gets better. But like, just know that that thing is that piece of it is and but I think it was as an I was missing the intimacy at an India with friends, you know, there was just a, there's a lot about coming from somewhere and then trying to find your way in a new country that is deeply challenging, emotionally deeply challenging that, you know, our parents can't understand. And that was another thing. Like, I don't think my parents, because it's a whole different experience, it's a whole different thing.

They are going through an immigrant experience of their own, they're going through their own thing. And they can't understand, you know, I remember, oh, my God, this memory, because, you know, it was my parents were, they were getting their master's still. So they weren't, you know, in jobs yet. And so, you know, they bought us clothes from Kmart, Walmart, and I remember just coming home and just like yelling at my parents that they had humiliated me in school, you know, And now I'm like, I don't care, like what I put on my body, I care about, but not about brands.

[42:43] Arpita Mukherjee: And Fitch Clothes, which I don't even think anybody cares about now, was the obsession of my life.

[42:49] Alex Ferrari: Once again, I think that's so American, right? The materialism, the wanting to fit in.

[42:53] Arpita Mukherjee: Deoling Skechers sneakers. Oh my god, Skechers sneakers. Like, it was so, I now I think, like, Oh my god, I'm so, but it's, you know, a lot of my friends have kids, and like, I look at these kids, and I'm like, my god, they're gonna grow up and like, this American school experience, the fact that so many teens are in so much heartache, like, I get it. I was so I felt so isolated and alone, like so much. It was really, really a really troubling, a really hard time on my life, which could have, in a way gone many ways for me. But, you know, I think if it hadn't been for my actually this group of friends, Taz and them, it may have been like, really, really dark for me. But they kind of kept, you know, I kind of had a community. And by the time I went to college, like I was fine.

[43:45] Alex Ferrari: That feels very much like New York, too, right? I think like New York, the experience in New York, at least from what I've experienced so far, it can be very isolating at times. Yeah. And it's like about finding your community. It's about finding the people that you care about, that will care about you the same way that you care about them. And it's really hard being an artist in terms of like, oh, how do you draw the line? Like, I want to care about the people that I work with as much as I want to care about their work, you know? And that's the only way to build community, I think, at least.

[44:16] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. And I think that's literally you sharing that is so applicable to any stage of your life. I think I feel I think it's true in New York. And I think being an artist is very isolating and success and like, you know, failure. I love that you brought that up. Because my next question is literally, how would you define success, quote, unquote, success today? Like, if you, what would you tell yourself? Like, what do you tell yourself now? That's like, do you think you're successful at this point in your life? Do you think that you want to hit a certain thing in order to be successful? Do you think it's a mindset? What would you think that is?

[44:48] Arpita Mukherjee: You know, I think specifically in this last year, where I mean, of course, people have been like, wow, you're really, you know, you're really like making it or whatever. You are I don't know why you're brushing that off. I'm getting to that. I think it's because a it's very hard to not compare what you're doing with other people. So hard to turn on Instagram, and it's like right there. It's really hard. And and so and and that and driving yourself to more and more and more and more is really what I've been doing. And you know, when I when it was like the fellowship started coming more jobs started coming. I asked people because I'm also I have no time. I have no time and I really don't want to come across as I'm as that I'm complaining, but I was like, oh my god, like, it's just completely like burnout, like almost like getting to burnout, but then like, then pulling myself back.

And and so what I realized it had to be and then always feeling disappointed, right? Because like, I didn't have that opportunity. Did I do it well enough? Because like the artistic director didn't call me and say that was getting a production out of a workshop, like so many little little things are going through your brain. After that coffee, you know, like, did I mess up? Did I not talk enough about my aesthetic, you know, so many things are like, always whirling about the performative aspect of what we have to do about how much we know, and it sometimes gets very icky. It's very icky.

[46:25] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, it can get very icky, you know, and and then even at the company, like, feeling like, I mean, this hypocrite did so much this year and still feeling like, well, why didn't we get covered by this outlet? Or, you know, so many, you're always dealing with that. And for me, like this year has really been about, if this is the next many years of my life, it's not going to work out for me. Like, I'm just, it's just not going to be good. So what do you think you? So I think for me, I've redefined success, that success, as you know, and looking at well, that person's doing that, and they're already directing there is, I won't say that I don't do it at all. But whenever I get to it, I start thinking, okay, what do I want to do?

Because I have a company, it actually it's, I was really kind of like, you know, evaluating that, do I still need to or want to make work at Hypocrite? And I absolutely do, because I feel some power in that, because there's like, oh, I want to do this project. And I don't, I don't have to always be pitching as a freelance director. The word that goes alongside that concept is like, autonomy, freedom, artistic value that you have control over.

[47:40] Arpita Mukherjee: I know, sometimes it sounds like a little, it does sound a little icky. But no, but I totally hear what you're saying. Make your own fucking reality. That if we are in the business of imagining things, then we must imagine a world in which we can work without having to do this twice as hard and all of that. And maybe that means that our goals and our way of working and also way of how we appreciate ourselves is different. Because the system we say is oppressive is the system that has set up the metric for success. So, we can't say, oh, my God, the American theater, but like, what I want are all the successful metrics that the American theater has set up. Now, I just think that we have to reimagine the whole system. And otherwise, we're just going to be like, sad, because things move forward and things move backwards. There was a recent article that the Emmys this year, diversity in nominations has gone way down.

[48:53] Alex Ferrari: Interesting.

[48:54] Arpita Mukherjee: It's gone from like 38 last year to like 24 this year. So, I'm just saying that we celebrate a year and then the next year, the news is like opposite. So, maybe it's not the system. Maybe Emmys shouldn't be or do you know what I mean? Reimagine the house.

[49:13] Alex Ferrari: That's such a whole other conversation, like awards. And I mean, we had the conversation about like chasing that validation and what does that mean? I can't go into that.

[49:25] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah, let's move next question.

[49:26] Alex Ferrari: Last, I do want to say like, I find you very inspiring because I see you work really hard and that inspires me to work really hard. And I mean, for people who don't really have context, we've been talking the whole show and we really, really don't have a lot of context. We're working together. You're directing our show, The Golden Threshold, and I'm writing with Eric Sorles. And I think it has been so invaluable from the moment I approached you in that Musical Theater Factory open chair. I'll always remember that because literally, like a few days before or weeks before, once again, man, you need to know Arpida. I was like, okay, let's go find, let me figure this out. And from the moment we sat down for our first little drink date with Eric, everything that you have given to us so openly in terms of artistically, creatively building the story with us, examining the story that we sometimes can be blindsided by, because we're not Indian.

But we are, I mean, I know people are going to clock me for this, but I'm like, fuck this. But we're all human. We really are all human. And we're really trying to examine an experience that is so specific, that is universal to all cultures, to anyone who struggles with the idea of finding yourself, finding freedom. What does it mean to have a life? What does it mean to live on this planet? What is your worth? And literally everything that you have given to us through so far multiple rehearsal processes and just talking and being in the room with you, you are such a light. And you drive thought and conversation in certain directions that I wouldn't, we would never even think about, you know, just in our artistic lives. And I want to say thank you.

[51:25] Arpita Mukherjee: That's so sweet. We're gonna cry.

[51:29] Alex Ferrari: Because I've not been talking about how I just wanted to be a popular girl.

[51:37] Arpita Mukherjee: You don't have to be blonde. You don't. Truly. Because I think what each of us individually contribute to the world is based on our life experiences. Can you imagine if you never wanted to be that popular girl, you would not have experienced the things that you have experienced in order to gain literally the insight that you have into the work that is being produced right now?

[52:00] Alex Ferrari: I don't think I would be an empath as much as I am.

[52:06] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. I mean, if you got everything you wanted, then what's the point, right? So before we close this out, I would love to ask if you have a question for me.

[52:14] Alex Ferrari: What should I ask you?

[52:16] Arpita Mukherjee: Well, can you tell me more about when you got interested in writing musicals?

[52:20] Alex Ferrari: Yeah. I don't think I've ever asked you all this question. Yeah. And I mean, I think I tell this story sometimes. But I mean, I'm going to tell you this. I mean, to talk about writing musicals, it has to go back to why I came to the States in the first place. I came to the States in 2010 for a callback for The Glee Project. You know Glee, right? And so they had this little spinoff reality TV show called The Glee Project that literally Ali Stroker was in. She just wanted Tony. She was in the second season. Alex Newell was in the first season.

[53:40] Arpita Mukherjee: Wow. Yeah. So I was here for a callback. That was my first time traveling alone, ever. Well, that's a lie. First time traveling without my parents. That was my first semester in college back in Singapore. And on that trip, I saw Wicked. I always say it's my first show, but it really isn't. My first show was Mary Poppins. But Wicked was the first pair of Broadway tickets I ever bought. And so I sat in that theater. I saw Elphaba singing. I was crying while she was singing to Find Gravity. My friend was sleeping right next to me. And I said, this is what I wanted to do. And I never thought wanting to do this. I mean, I was an actor. I mean, I still am an actor, but not actively pursuing that. But writing came a lot later.

I think in college, one of my professors, I'm going to shout out to Michael Wartofsky, teaches musical theater writing. And he graduated from this program at NYU a while ago. And he really inspired this entire, like, my entire college experience was kind of revolved around musical theater. I've never been exposed to musical theater as a child. I grew up knowing nothing about musical theater. I've never seen a show in my life, like a theater show in my life.

[54:03] Arpita Mukherjee: You know, Kit, sorry, but this is such a common story with POC writers or immigrant writers, were like, I had no experience with, you know, it's a interesting anyway.

[54:14] Alex Ferrari: I mean, like, Singapore's theater scene is, I wouldn't say it's thriving, but it's growing very rapidly. But as a child growing up, I didn't even get to see Les Mis. Like, I don't know what that was. Like, I had no context of what musical theater was. And I want to say, I always say that Wicked was a turning point because that whole experience in 2010 December was such a turning point for me that I got a scholarship. I actively sought out a scholarship to go to Berkeley. I actively figured out a way to come to America. I couldn't do the Glee Project because I didn't have a visa. I mean, even if I had a visa, I don't know if I would have gotten it. But just like, they were like, you don't have a visa, you have to, you know, get one. And I was like, what the fuck is that?

[55:04] Arpita Mukherjee: And I was- Wait, can't I get this job and then you give me the visa?

[55:07] Alex Ferrari: That was what I was thinking. I was like, what the fuck? What are you talking about? I'm so confused. No. And so writing came a lot later in college while I was doing musical theater in college. And I was doing a lot of like songwriting, plus pop, plus orchestration, plus theater. And it just like all came together. And after I graduated two years later, um, I was living in New York and I approached one of my collaborators with this project that has just been like sitting on the computer that was a college project, Eastbound that you saw.

[55:36] Arpita Mukherjee: Right.

[55:37] Alex Ferrari: And we wrote it. And I, let me just say, it is insane. Because first of all, I've never thought of coming to America ever in my life. It was never in the books. And I've never thought about writing, be it musical theater, composition, like composition, like nothing. It came around so like, coincidentally, I don't, I don't know if that's the word, but it just happened.

[56:07] Arpita Mukherjee: Oh my gosh.

[56:07] Alex Ferrari: And like, I realized that I could do it well, question mark, question mark.

[56:12] Arpita Mukherjee: Yeah. Oh my God. I'm not going to ask more questions. But were you partly writing to write material for yourself? Since there's such a scarcity of it?

[56:19] Alex Ferrari: Yes. I mean, that was where it started for sure.