Aditi Brennan Kapil is an actress, writer, and director, of Bulgarian and Indian descent, raised in Sweden, and currently residing in Minneapolis, MN. She is a graduate of Macalester College with a BA in English and Dramatic Arts. 

Her latest play, Love Person, a four part love story in Sanskrit, ASL and English, was developed during a Many Voices residency at the Playwrights' Center, work-shopped at the Lark Center for New Play Development in NY, and produced in a rolling world premiere at Mixed Blood Theatre (MN), Marin Theater (CA), and Phoenix Theatre (IN) as part of the National New Play Network CLNPF program. In 2008/09 it was produced by Live Girls! Theatre in Seattle, and Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago. Love Person has been nominated for the Blackburn Prize, the Francesca Primus Award, and the ATCA/Steinberg Award. 

Aditi's current work-in-progress, Agnes Under The Big Top, a fairy tale, was selected as a Distinguished New Play Development Project by the NEA New Play Development Program hosted by Arena Stage, and was developed at the Lark Play Development Center (NY), Mixed Blood Theatre (MN), InterAct Theatre (PA), the Playwrights' Center (MN), and the Leon Katz Rhodopi International Theater Laboratory (Bulgaria). Agnes is slated to premiere at Mixed Blood Theatre in 2010.

Aditi's playwriting credits include a number of plays for youth, among them The Deaf Duckling, a bilingual (ASL & English) educational touring show about growing up Deaf, created in collaboration with Deaf performer Nic Zapko for Mixed Blood Theater, and The Adventures of Hanuman, King of the Monkeys, a Bollywood style musical inspired by tales from the Ramayana for SteppingStone Theater for Youth Development (March 2006). She has also collaborated on several productions with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, notably Gotama, a play about the early life of the Buddha, and Beneath the Surface, a water circus. She is currently developing Hanuman and the Girl Prince for SteppingStone Theatre for Youth, a play in iambic verse loosely based on an episode in the Mahabharata.

Messy Utopia, which she directed, and co-wrote with Seema Sueko, Velina Hasu-Houston, Janet Allard, and Naomi Iizuka, received an Ivey Award, and #6 in the City Pages Best of the Twin Cities 2007.

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Agnes under the Big Top

a fairy tale
Description

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

In this Busker's tale, Agnes, an immigrant home-care worker, discovers that she has terminal cancer and sets in motion events steering her rheumatoid, bedridden employer on a collision course with a former ringmaster driving a subway train.

Love Person

a fairy tale
Description In this four part love story in Sanskrit, ASL and English- love transcends sexual orientation, physical attraction, and social structure, and rests instead on the ways in which we communicate and how communication bonds or breaks us.
'Love Person' play is structured around 4 Sanskrit love poems that influence and reflect the journeys of the characters.
Free, a Deaf woman in a relationship with Maggie, accidentally falls into a deceptive email correspondence with her sister Vic’s love interest Ram, a Sanskrit professor. Free and Ram discover a connection, based largely on an affinity between their two languages. As a result of the deception, Vic and Ram also begin to fall in love. Meanwhile Free and Maggie’s relationship struggles to survive.

Quotes:

"Kapil's "Love Person" is a fascinating brew of emotion, wit and intellect that challenges its audience to reassess how the form of communication shapes understanding." Lisa Brock, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"startling and evocative" Michael Opperman, Twin Cities Daily Planet

"Heart-pounding attraction, intense all-night conversations- Aditi Brennan Kapil's Love Person captures the giddiness of new love affairs. But the play is even more eloquently realistic about the wear and tear that time wreaks on relationships." Nicole Estvanik, American Theatre Magazine, July 2008

The Adventures of Hanuman

King of the Monkeys
Description A Bollywood-style musical loosely adapted from the central story in the Ramayana from the perspective of Hanuman the mischievous monkey. The young monkey Hanuman is a social outcast with a fantastical imagination. When the Princess Sita is kidnapped by the 10-headed demon Ravana, Hanuman finds his courage and his destiny in helping Prince Rama rescue his beloved.
Running time: 55 minutes
Cast size: 12-22

The Deaf Duckling

King of the Monkeys
Description In this coming of age tale intended for young audiences, a deaf child growing up in a hearing family discovers her voice when she discovers American Sign Language. The play is fully bilingual, and accessible in ASL and English.
Running time: 45 minutes
Cast size: 3

Shiv

King of the Monkeys
Description

Workshop April 20-22
Public Reading April 22, 2:30PM

Shiv understands privilege, she has read about it, she has studied it, and she knows how to seduce a tight-knit group of privileged, educated Americans by playing on their fantasies and sense of entitlement. She breaks the moral codes of western society, she employs any strength to achieve her objectives, she ensures her own survival through deception. What is morality out of context? What is the nature of a woman’s power? And is Shiv the heroine of this story, or the villain?

Workshop April 20-22
Public Reading April 22, 2:30PM

Shiv understands privilege, she has read about it, she has studied it, and she knows how to seduce a tight-knit group of privileged, educated Americans by playing on their fantasies and sense of entitlement. She breaks the moral codes of western society, she employs any strength to achieve her objectives, she ensures her own survival through deception. What is morality out of context? What is the nature of a woman’s power? And is Shiv the heroine of this story, or the villain?