Shishir Kurup

Adjunct Faculty

Shishir Kurup is an actor/writer/director/composer born in Bombay, India, raised in Mombasa, Kenya and the U.S. His one-man shows Assimilation and Exile: Ruminations on a Reluctant Martyr (the latter a commission from Highways Performance Space) have been seen in countless cities and universities nationally and internationally, including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, London and Manchester, England. His essay “In-Between-Space” appears in “Let’s Get It On: The Politics of Black Performance”, published by the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. Assimilation is published by Rutgers Press in the anthology “Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing.” He was profiled in author Mei Ling Cheng’s book: “In Other Los Angeleses-Multicentric Performance Art.” His latest solo performance piece Sharif Don’t Like It examines the fallout from the USA Patriot Act and the disappearance of over two thousand South Asian and Arab Muslims.

Shishir is an ensemble member of the nationally renowned Cornerstone Theater Company and was nominated for an Ovation Award for best supporting actor for Cornerstone’s Malliere. He has also written over a hundred songs for Cornerstone, winning Garland and Drama-Logue Awards for music composition in Los Vecinos and Candude (the latter directed by him and nominated for an Ovation Award for Best Musical of the Year); and for acting in Twelfth Night, MedeaMacbethCinderella and Los Biombos, directed by Bill Rauch, Tracy Young and Peter Sellars, respectively. He was composer for Cornerstone’s adaptation of The Good Person of New Haven at the Long Wharf Theatre and for a subsequent MedeaMacbethCinderella production at Yale Rep.

Most recently, he composed songs for Cornerstone’s production of As You Like It: A California Concoction at the Pasadena Playhouse and co-composed songs for and directed Cornerstone’s 20th anniversary show Demeter in the City at Redcat in Disney Hall written by MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl. His play On Caring for the Beast opened in New York in April 2001 at the Currican Theater and was the inaugural production of DISHA Theatre Company. Shishir was also one of only six people nationwide to receive the TIME (Time for Inspiration, Motivation and Exploration) Grant from the Audrey Skirball Foundation in recognition of his body of work. Last year, he was a Herb Alpert Award nominee for theatre.

For Cornerstone, he has also written and directed Ghurba with the Arab-American community in the Los Angeles Festival, and written, directed and composed An Antigone Story, a multi-media, rock ‘n’ roll hijack of Sophocles’ classic at The Getty Center and The Subway Terminal Building (the latter production coinciding with the Democratic National Convention of 2000). He also co-directed (with Bill Rauch) and composed songs for Everyman in the Mall, and was playwright and composer for Sid Arthur and Birthday of the Century. As Vishnu Dreams, Shishir’s meditation on the Ramayana, completed a highly successful run at East West Players with critic’s choice from both the LA Times and LA Weekly. He just directed the sold-out run of Los Illegals, by Michael John Garces, which kicked off Cornerstone’s three-year Justice Cycle. Shishir is nearing completion of his first feature film with Cornerstone of Sharif Don’t Like It, which will be sent to Film Festivals around the country and abroad.

Elsewhere, he directed Sung Rno’s Cleveland Rainin at East West Players and Ten Angry Clowns at the Delle Arte School, as well as several productions at the Los Angeles Theater Center where he was a part of the Artistic Staff running the Asian American Theatre Project. Shishir is a Princess Grace fellow. He is a California Arts Council Grant and Kennedy Center, Roger. L. Stevens Award recipient for his modern verse adaptation of Merchant on Venice, set in the South Asian community in and around Venice Boulevard in Culver City. Merchant was picked for the first annual South Asian Diaspora festival at New York’s Lark Theatre. It also received an NEA/TCG Extended Collaboration Grant for further development workshops in Los Angeles and New York at East West Players and The Lark respectively. Merchant performed at the Mark Taper Forum’s New Plays for Now Festival at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in the Spring of '05. In the Fall of '07, Merchant premiered at The Silk Road Theatre Project in Chicago to unanimously stellar reviews and the Ten Best List of the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times and Time Out Magazine, as well as other publications.

Shishir’s many acting roles have included Macbeth, Feste, Azdak and Trigorin. He played The Director in Alison Carey’s For Here or to Go? at the Mark Taper Forum. His many film and television credits include: Coneheads, Trigger Effect, City of Angels (film and TV series), In Good Company, Sleeper Cell, Lost, Alias, Monk, Charmed, The Agency, Murder in Small Town X, Strong Medicine, Judging Amy, Off Centre, Six Feet Under, ER, C-16, and recurring roles on: Chicago Hope, Surface, M.D.’s and West Wing; He currently recurs on Heroes on NBC.