South Asian Theater
in Silicon Valley

Welcome to South Asian Theater in Silicon Valley, part of the South Asians in Silicon Valley initiative. This exhibition invites you to explore the rich traditions of South Asian performance — from their historical roots to their contemporary expressions within the diaspora. Developed in partnership with the SJSU King Library, the exhibit highlights how theater serves as both cultural memory and creative adaptation. 

In 1907, Arthur William Ryder, a Harvard scholar of Sanskrit language and literature, collaborated with the English Club at UC Berkeley to stage a translation of a Sanskrit play, Mrichchhakatikam by Shudraka, as The Little Clay Cart. No Indian or South Asian was involved in the production in any capacity. 

In 2026, there are at least twenty theater groups of South Asian origin who actively produce plays regularly every year. 

Theater scholar Sudipto Chatterjee writes, “South Asian” theater in the United States can be understood in the following ways:  

1. South Asian community performances (in a variety of languages) made by and for South Asian American communities.
2. Visiting South Asian performers (using a variety of languages) in America.
3. South Asian American performances by the grown descendants of immigrants, often in collaboration with other ethnic communities and mainstream culture.  
  “South Asian American Theatre: (Un/Re-) Painting the Town Brown.” Theatre Survey 49:1, May 2008, P. 112-113. 

South Asian theater productions in Silicon Valley often adapt plays written in their home countries. Increasingly, many theater groups write and stage original works that engage with stories of migration and the complexities of the diaspora. Music and dance also have a special role in many of these productions. Theater groups often bring stories from well-known epics to the stage, which are commonly long, traditional narratives that tell the adventures of heroes, gods, and historic events, and are widely recognized as foundational works of storytelling and culture. The Ramayana and The Mahabharata resonate with Silicon Valley audiences because of the stories they tell and the questions they raise, about life’s decisions, about good and right, about ethics and politics, and the nuances of identities.  

South Asian theater also includes elaborate dance performances that tell stories about history, identities, and nuanced musical and dance heritages that inform South Asian artists. These performances, staged by dance academies specializing in various Classical dance forms from the sub-continent, are often accompanied by live musicians, present on stage, who recreate the depicted world through sound and movement. 

In this exhibit, we feature twelve theater groups, including dance academies, and four individual artists, who have actively shaped South Asian thespian traditions in Silicon Valley. In addition, the exhibit will demonstrate the influence of  Rabindranath Tagore, the polymath from India and the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize, who wrote several plays and musical dramas. Many of the theater groups featured in the exhibit have adapted his work on Silicon Valley stages. 

Credits

Research and Curation Team
Mantra Roy, Community Engagement Librarian and Lead, South Asians in Silicon Valley initiative, SJSU King Library
Chandni Rathod, MLIS+ Fellow, Graduate Student, School of Information, SJSU 
Nick Sydlowski, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Technical Advisor, SJSU King Library

Installation Team
Rea Sandhu, Graduate Student, School of Information, SJSU
Jed Drexler, Graduate student, MBA Program, SJSU
Jennifer Thrift, Graduate Student, School of Information, SJSU
Katherine Love, Graduate Student, School of Information, SJSU
Jennifer Guess, Graduate Student, School of Information, SJSU
Zainab Shaikh, Undergraduate student, Data Science Major and Political Science Minor, SJSU
Hannah Yu, Undergraduate student, Information Science and Data Analytics Major, SJSU
Avinash Ravindra, Undergraduate student, Environmental Studies Major, SJSU
Pulkit Srivastava, Graduate Student, Applied Data Science, SJSU
Gina DiLisio, Graduate Student, School of Information, SJSU
Kathryn Blackmer Reyes, Director of AAACNA, for providing installation materials, SJSU King Library

Marketing and Promotions
Mariah Ramsour, Marketing, Events, and Design Specialist 
James Sander, ‘27 BFA Graphic Design
Lesley Seacrist, Marketing Communications and Relations Analyst 

All artwork and written material in this exhibit represent the independent expression of the artists and curators. The opinions and messages conveyed are solely those of the creators and should not be understood as endorsed by SJSU.