The Devi Story Lab is a series of workshops that will empower you to find your voice, create a community of spirited women, and bring to life an evening of unique stories and experiences.
LadyDrinks and Paprika Productions (Nadia Manzoor, Tara Elliott, Marina Romashko) are joining forces to offer a 10-week storytelling workshop, culminating in a performance on Thursday June 23rd, 2016.
After an intensive application process, the following women have been selected to participatee:
Piya Paulus (President & CEO of Always Best Care), Divya Sood (general manager and licensed optician at Visionworks), Gunjan Agrawal (personal jeweller and owner of Shukra Jewels), Hetal Gor (OBGYN and Medical Director of Women’s Own OBGYN), Priya Arora (Content Editor, India.com), Nidhi Makhija (Partner, Reveal Retail Solutions) and Shanzey Afzal (Tattoo Artist) All told, seven women are due to take the stage to perform their stories on a New York City stage Thursday, June 23rd, 2016.
WHAT
The Devi Story Lab is a series of workshops that will empower you to find your voice, create a community of spirited women, and bring to life an evening of unique stories and experiences. As South Asian women from a diversity of cultural and religious backgrounds we have dealt with resistance from our families cultural communities at various points. We are not in the habit of taking our stories and experiences to the stage. Instead, we keep them hidden.
The workshop will help you discover your story and how to tell it, through improvisation, writing exercises, enthusiastic support and personal coaching. Through humor and play, we will shed light on the dark corners of our past.
Nadia Manzoor, creator of the acclaimed one woman show and Burq Off! and the Gotham Award winning web series Shugs & Fats will lead this workshop, guiding the group along a journey similar to her own. Nadia has reconciled her relationship with her tumultuous past through self exploration and creative expression. Her humorous performances bring laughter and insight to the public conversation of what it means to be an Eastern woman in the West.
Joya Dass, who is a long time television journalist in New York City, and told her own journey through her 2013 TedTalk on the subject of “Re-thinking Failure” will work with Nadia on the writing and production.
WHY
What is your story? Do you know it? Have you told it? You’re a woman. You’re driven, passionate, and brilliant, and your life experience is rich. You have an untold story. It’s stuck inside of you with no place to go. Have you ever thought of yourself as a bad daughter, partner, mother, wife? Have you ever felt trapped by the cultural norms that define you? This workshop will create a safe place where we as South Asian Women can share our stories and discover our inherent power, beauty, and truth. We will use humor and collaboration to help you tell your story. You will work with professional theater producers, directors, and coaches of women-centric works to discover your story. When you share it, your vulnerability will inspire others to find and share their own untold truths.
WHERE
The workshop will be held in a rehearsal studio in midtown Manhattan, conveniently accessible by Public Transportation.
WHEN
Start date April 13th. Workshops will be held on Wednesday evenings from 6-8:30pm. Workshop will meet every Wednesday between April 13th and June 23rd except for May 11th and 18th. Performance and tech will be Thursday June 23rd.