GREAT LEAP, INC. |
 |
GREAT LEAP : ARTISTS : SHISHIR KURUP
Shishir directed PLATFORM’s The Scary Election Show and Angels on Fire, RAVEN GROUP’s The Barking Wall and his self-authored Skeleton Dance at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. He co-wrote and performed in Life and Death: The Vaudeville Show, which was presented at Cuba’s international Congresso Mundial Sobre La Muerte. He is a member of Cornerstone Theatre Company, for whom he wrote and directed, Ghurba, which focused on Arab-American culture and played to sold-out houses in the Los Angeles Festival, and with Bill Rauch, co-directed and composed music for the critically acclaimed Everyman in the Mall, the 15th century morality play that roved throughout the Santa Monica Place Mall and adapted Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha into a play with songs called Sid Arthur for Cornerstone’s residency in the community of Watts. In March 1995, Shishir directed Sung Rno’s,Cleveland Raining at East West Players and acted in and composed songs for CTC’s The Central Ave. Chalk Circle , which won the L.A. OVATION Award for Best Play culminating the company’s year and a half residency in Watts. He was last seen in The California Seagull a modern adaptation of Chekov’s The Seagull which was also adapted for PBS and Malliere adapted from three one-acts by Moliere. Shishir is a two-time recipient of the Flintridge Foundation Grant, for his plays Skeleton Dance (LATC) and On Caring for the Beast (Highways, The Minneapolis Playwrights Center), and was awarded The Princess Grace fellowship for acting and directing. He is a member of the Nexus Council at South Coast Repertory, a Suzuki instructor at U.S.C., a member of GREAT LEAP’S Slice of Rice and Co-Directed with Page Leong of the solo performance partnership RAVEN GROUP. Kurup is a featured performer with Great Leap’s productions of “A Slice of Rice” and “A Slice of Rice, Frijoles and Greens.” To email the artist directly: shishpage@earthlink.net |
Shishir Kurup is a Writer/Director/Performer/Musician born in Bombay, India, raised in Mombasa, Kenya, and various parts of the United States, who considers himself an Indo-African-American. His one man shows Assimilation, and EXILE: Ruminations on a Reluctant Martyr, has played at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Mark Taper Forum, Whittier College, Highways Performance Space, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London, the Green Room in Manchester and most recently at New World Theatre, University of Massachusetts.