Friday, April 24, 2026
He’s a Playwright, His Mother’s a Physicist—And They’re Performing a Show Together
Playbill: You might think that when playwright Shayok Misha Chowdhury asked his mother to be in his play, it would be a hard ask. But actually, it was pretty easy. “Everyone's always like, ‘How did you rope your mom into doing this?’ It really was like, can we make a physics meets theatre thing that interests the two of us?” He then turns to his mom, Bulbul Chakraborty, who’s sitting next to him, “and you were really game.”
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It seems like this actor/playwright and his mother have a really sweet dynamic. I love that the playwright Chowdhury wanted to have his mother act with him, and that his mother was game!
It was interesting to hear about how his parents reacted to Chowdhury pursuing theatre in college. In my Model Minorities: Introduction to Asian American Studies class, I studied many Asian immigrant experiences, and there were themes of traditionalism and struggle between generations. Often, second generation Asian Americans felt pressure from their parents to take academic courses that would ensure “success” and well paying jobs after graduation. I’m glad that Chowdhury was able to follow his passion of theatre, and that his parents were understanding enough to even work with him in this play!
It was so sweet to hear Chowdhury’s comments about his mother: “What I have done is forced her to be in a show with me, so we can spend more time together.”
This article reminded me of how lucky I feel to be in an industry where I can learn about a new subject with every show I do. To produce this play, the creators had to have more than a surface level of understanding of physics, and it’s written in a way to make physics beautiful, so that the audience can participate in this knowledge even if they aren’t savvy to physics themselves. I always chuckle a little when people say they don’t like plays. You don’t often hear people say they don’t like music or movies, but rather certain genres of music or movies. I wonder why plays sometimes don’t get the same thought. A play is a story, and can be about anything; these people just haven’t experienced the right play yet. I am also so touched that this mother and son could collaborate and combine the things they are most passionate about. Reading the part about how she never quite knew how to advise a career in the arts, but was always supportive made me so happy.
Working with family to create a play seems to be an incredible experience. I love collaborating with people that I know really well. When you feel as though you can read each other’s minds and opinions it makes the whole creative process go much smoother. I would love to be able to work on a collaborative art piece with my mom, in fact I will probably make some art with my mom this summer. On a separate note, taking two fields that have seemingly no connection and finding ways to link them to each other makes for some of the most interesting pieces of artwork. In this case the two fields are theater and physics and while I don’t know a lot about physics I do know that it deals with chain reactions and how objects impact things around them just like how theater is often centered around a main character and how their actions have an effect on the world around them.
This is such an awesome story. The fact he was able to get his mother to create this production with him is so cool. I’m sure being able to create a production with your family is a wonderful experience. I think it’s really cool that the playwright was able to incorporate a physics lecture into the play, since his mother has given so many physics lectures in her life. I love the reasoning behind adding his mother in the production, “as long as we’re doing this show she is literally, contractually obligated to be alive.” It’s really nice, I mean who wouldn’t want their mom to stay alive, especially if they have a great connection with her. I think it’s also a great way for them to bond, combining their interests and putting it into one production. It’s very clear that this playwright values his family, which I think will strengthen the quality of his works as it seems that they are a big source of his inspiration.
These kinds of stories of parents fully supporting their children and their children thanking them in the most beautiful ways makes me very happy. Both my parents are in STEM and have told me that they do not exactly know what I am doing with my career but they have been incredibly supportive. For this mother and son pair, it seems like it was a beautiful bonding experience and they got to understand each other a little better. Personally, I love mixing STEM and theater. A lot of people do not think that they belong together but in reality there is so much that overlaps with the processes and ideas. When Chakraborty talks about watching her son interact with the designers and relating it back to her work, it makes me think a lot about how sometimes I wish my parents could see me work and what they would think about it.
Science and art are such close forms of thinking and I love to see anyone combining and relating the two professions. Both science and art force you to ask questions and challenge what is currently accepted to be true. Many scientists have dabbled in a creative form or two and were either pushed away from it due to society or their curiosity was more drawn towards the world rather than the people living in it. It is part of a scientist's job to give talks and teach others information that they have spent time figuring out. Their talks are not unlike many of the performances and plays that we as theater makers put on. Each is about passing down information to the next generation and although one requires more hard numbers the emotion and love for telling stories is embedded in everyone. Overall I believe the sciences and arts should work more collaboratively and accept that they really aren't that different from one another.
I love this idea! Science and art go hand in hand. Some may think they're opposites but you can't have one without the other. Early doctors needed to draw their studies of anatomy and nature. This documentation, through art, allowed for the spreading of this new information and allowed for further studies to be made. In theater there is so much engineering and math involved for rigging, technical direction, lights, sound, etc. I would love to be a part of more project that bring together these two schools of thought in fun and interesting ways. Think Hamilton but science instead of history.
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