Larson Legacy Concert: Shayok Misha Chowdhury & Laura Grill Jaye (with livestream)

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Purchase  livestream  tickets here.

Shayok Misha Chowdhury and Laura Grill Jaye have been writing musicals together for over a decade now. Their work was awarded a 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant and has been seen or developed at Ars Nova, New York Theatre Workshop, SPACE on Ryder Farm, NYMF, HERE Arts Center, and Joe’s Pub @ The Public Theater.

On April 9th, they will be presenting excerpts from How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia, an automythography about assimilation and overactive scar tissue, The Optics of Dying Light, about the physics of light and the legacy of the Armenian Genocide, Artemis in the Parking Lot, about a teenager who eats dirt, and Blood Oleander, reimagining an old Bengali drama in Tennessee coal country.

The cast for the concert includes Max Chernin (“Bright Star”), Geena Quintos (“Soft Power”), and Terran Scott (“The Elementary Spacetime Show”) alongside celebrated jazz vocalist Vuyo Sotashe. They are joined by Fima Chupakhin on keys, Matt Consul on mandolin and violin, and Saskia Lane on bass.

Misha is a many-tentacled writer, director, and performer based in Brooklyn. He is currently writing Public Obscenities, a new bilingual play commissioned by Soho Rep & NAATCO, and Rheology, a concert-memoir-physics-symposium commissioned by HERE Arts Center. Recently: Brother, Brother (New York Theatre Workshop) with Aleshea Harris; MukhAgni (Under the Radar @ The Public Theater) with Kameron Neal. Next up: SPEECH (Philadelphia Fringe Festival) with Lightning Rod Special. Misha is also the creator of VICHITRA, a series of sound-driven, cinematic experiments including Englandbashi (Ann Arbor Film Festival); An Anthology of Queer Dreams (Finalist for Third Coast’s Audio Unbound Award), The Other Other (Ars Nova), and In Order to Become (The Bushwick Starr), which he is developing into a queer Carnatic opera. Misha was a collaborator and soloist on the Grammy-winning album Calling All Dawns, and he recently collaborated with composer Kalaisan Kalaichelvan on a new choral commission, Blue Letter (Pro Coro Canada & The Canadian League of Composers). His poetry has been published in The Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Fellowships: Sundance, Fulbright, NYSCA/NYFA, Kundiman, New York Theatre Workshop 2050. Residencies: Hermitage, Soho Rep Project Number One, Ars Nova Makers Lab, New York Stage and Film. MFA: Columbia.

Laura is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, improviser, educator, performer, and music director. With the Laura Grill Band, Laura has written and produced two records, Never Before and Tell All Your Friends, and toured nationally. The Boston Globe called her original music “jump jazz, barroom rock, chamber folk, and downright infectious.” She has collaborated with Jacob Collier, Audra McDonald, Luciana Souza, and Jason Moran. Laura received her MM in Jazz Studies from New England Conservatory and her BM in Jazz Voice and Composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts. She is on faculty at Meridian Academy in Boston and MIT’s Music and Theater Arts program.

The Larson Legacy Concert Series at the Adelphi PAC celebrates the next generation of artists at the college home of the creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical RENT, Jonathan Larson (’82). Each year, the American Theatre Wing presents emerging creators of musical theatre with The Jonathan Larson Grants. Select recipients of these grants are showcased at the Adelphi PAC in this series to help nurture and support the next generation of creative artists to carry on Jonathan Larson’s legacy. Past recipients of these grants have gone on to create the Broadway musicals Dear Evan Hansen, Be More Chill, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Grey Gardens, Next To Normal, Elf, Hands on a Hardbody, A Christmas Story and many more.

Important COVID Protocols:

Our priority is to ensure the safety of our patrons, artists, staff and the entire Adelphi community against COVID-19. Thanks to the success of masks, vaccines, and tests in reducing the COVID-19 infection rate to new lows, we are no longer requiring guests to show proof of vaccination or a negative test when attending a performance at Adelphi. Masks are still required at all times while inside the PAC. We ask that everyone follow ongoing health guidelines to stay home if they have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days, knowingly been in close contact with anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19 (or is experiencing symptoms and awaiting test results), or are feeling sick (especially with a fever) yourself.

These policies will remain in place until further notice and are subject to change at any time. Feel free to contact the box office with any questions.