Anooj Bhandari

Anooj has written and performed over 150 experimental shorts on New York City and San Francisco stages. Specializing in devised and experimental works, this page features some of his traditional theatrical works.

Anooj is an Artist and Theater-Maker who believes deeply in art as a process to ask quiet questions publicly. He is an ensemble member of the New York Neo-Futurists, where he writes, performs, and directs in their weekly show, The Infinite Wrench. He also collaborates with Fresh Lime Soda Productions, a contemporary South-Asian theater ensemble, and is a writer and performer with Agile Rascal, a bicycle touring theater troupe. He is an alumnus of EmergeNYC, the Hemispheric Institute’s Fellowship for Emerging Political Performance Artists. Past residencies have included the...

Anooj has written and performed over 150 experimental shorts on New York City and San Francisco stages. Specializing in devised and experimental works, this page features some of his traditional theatrical works.

Anooj is an Artist and Theater-Maker who believes deeply in art as a process to ask quiet questions publicly. He is an ensemble member of the New York Neo-Futurists, where he writes, performs, and directs in their weekly show, The Infinite Wrench. He also collaborates with Fresh Lime Soda Productions, a contemporary South-Asian theater ensemble, and is a writer and performer with Agile Rascal, a bicycle touring theater troupe. He is an alumnus of EmergeNYC, the Hemispheric Institute’s Fellowship for Emerging Political Performance Artists. Past residencies have included the Lighthouse Residency at the BEAM Center, The Dancing with Peace Residency at How to Build Up, Inc. where he also served as the Residency Coordinator, and The Bandung Residency with the Asian American Arts Alliance and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Arts. Anooj is a 2023 MacDowell Fellowship recipient in the Theater Arts. He currently teaches Undergraduate Playwriting at Marymount Manhattan College.

Anooj is a Community Organizer with passions for the relationship between community education and the transformation of harm, and exploring alternatives to, diversions from, and the elimination of, the carceral state. His work focuses on building microcosms that imagine and explore the possibility of liberation within the interpersonal, through facilitations and community experiences. Recent campaign work includes the fight to end the School-to-Prison-Pipeline and the implementation of Restorative Justice in communities. Anooj was a co-organizer of the On Our Terms project (www.onourterms.nyc) and currently coordinates community training, public programming, and youth organizing, at New York City’s Restorative Justice Initiative.

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Scripts

Within Distance

by Anooj Bhandari

Cast Size
5
Genre
drama

Two ex-lovers meet again in a glass office on their college campus following the death of an unnamed national figure. Visited by memories past and future of intimacy both romantic-and-not, they watch their campus respond to the death through the office windows as they uncover their own relationships to retribution and their own bodies.

Two ex-lovers meet again in a glass office on their college campus following the death of an unnamed national figure. Visited by memories past and future of intimacy both romantic-and-not, they watch their campus respond to the death through the office windows as they uncover their own relationships to retribution and their own bodies.

Chai Chai

by Anooj Bhandari

Cast Size
7
Genre
comedy,
fable/folktale,
movement/physical,
young audiences

At the intersection of "this way" and "that way," a Giant sits at a Chai Stall, a young artist wonders what else there may be in the world, a Matchmaker wonders if she is losing her touch, and a very quiet character suddenly has a lot to say.

Guided by a mythical chorus of fly aunties, Chai Chai is a play about remembrance, memory, and what happens when we begin to forget.

At the intersection of "this way" and "that way," a Giant sits at a Chai Stall, a young artist wonders what else there may be in the world, a Matchmaker wonders if she is losing her touch, and a very quiet character suddenly has a lot to say.

Guided by a mythical chorus of fly aunties, Chai Chai is a play about remembrance, memory, and what happens when we begin to forget.

A Jar for Flowers

Script by Anooj Bhandari

Cast Size
4
Genre
drama,
science fiction,
young audiences

A mother convinces her child, in their one bedroom apartment in the middle of New York City, that they can communicate with their ancestors through a mythical jar that sits on their kitchen table.

A mother convinces her child, in their one bedroom apartment in the middle of New York City, that they can communicate with their ancestors through a mythical jar that sits on their kitchen table.

The Dog is Alive at the Start of the Play

by Anooj Bhandari

Cast Size
5
Genre
drama,
science fiction

816 days into what appears as the apocalypse, a South-Asian family in the suburbs of Pittsburgh contends with the decline of their dog's health, revealing the unacknowledged spirits both between and around them.

816 days into what appears as the apocalypse, a South-Asian family in the suburbs of Pittsburgh contends with the decline of their dog's health, revealing the unacknowledged spirits both between and around them.