Ayesha Siddiqui

Ayesha Siddiqui

Ayesha Siddiqui is a Los Angeles based playwright of Pakistani-American descent. Works include: The Intervention (Climate 10-Minute Play Festival, 2023; Best of Playground-LA 2022). Jaldee/Hurry (WAVE Director's Festival, 2023; The Vagrancy's Blossoming New Works Festival, 2021), The Young Woman is a Boar (Atlantic Theater/NYU Tisch One Act Festival 2021), Water Lily (Semifinalist, Seven Devils...
Ayesha Siddiqui is a Los Angeles based playwright of Pakistani-American descent. Works include: The Intervention (Climate 10-Minute Play Festival, 2023; Best of Playground-LA 2022). Jaldee/Hurry (WAVE Director's Festival, 2023; The Vagrancy's Blossoming New Works Festival, 2021), The Young Woman is a Boar (Atlantic Theater/NYU Tisch One Act Festival 2021), Water Lily (Semifinalist, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, 2020) and Baba, Jee (Father, Yes) (Hollywood Fringe Scholarship Winner, 2018). In 2019, she was selected for the inaugural Sundance Institute Los Angeles Playwriting Intensive. She is a member of the Playground-LA writer's pool (2022-present) and is a 2x Best of Playground-LA recipient (2022, 2023).

Plays

  • The Hunter by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: absurd, animal anthropomorphism + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, experimental
    Keyword: absurd, animal anthropomorphism, comedic philosophy, a question of morality
    In THE HUNTER, a deeply philosophical deer traps and confronts the man hunting them, seeking answers to questions of reciprocity.

    "HUNTER: A deer is talking to me.
    DEER: Yes, you sillyhead. Though a better question might be: Why am I in this trap? Who laid this trap? How can the sky be blue when it is in fact violet? Is it perception that makes things true?"
  • Desert Fashion Dreamers by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: climate change, experimental + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: climate change, experimental, eco-anxiety, climate grief, fashion
    In DESERT FASHION DREAMERS, discarded piles of clothing in the Atacama Desert of Chile learn the value of hope for a new life.

    "POLLY: It’s just so hot and it keeps getting hotter and there’s nothing to do but just sit here and bake to death and nothing ever happens."
  • The Intervention by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: climate change, outer space + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, science fiction
    Keyword: climate change, outer space, earth, under 10 minutes, Strong Female Characters, global crisis
    At the Interplanetary Summit, the Sun, Venus, and Mars stage an intervention in an attempt to stop Earth's worrying and reckless behavior that is having a negative effect on the galaxy.

    "EARTH: Look, you all have no idea how hard it is to be me, OK? You know what everyone calls me? Mother Earth. Like, mother? Can you see me as that? I can barely take care of myself. I never wanted to be...
    At the Interplanetary Summit, the Sun, Venus, and Mars stage an intervention in an attempt to stop Earth's worrying and reckless behavior that is having a negative effect on the galaxy.

    "EARTH: Look, you all have no idea how hard it is to be me, OK? You know what everyone calls me? Mother Earth. Like, mother? Can you see me as that? I can barely take care of myself. I never wanted to be a mother and suddenly I’m like, this planet with all these responsibilities. I never asked for this!"
  • Tears by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, science fiction
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    Keyword: science fiction, empathy + 3 more
    Genre: drama, science fiction
    Keyword: science fiction, empathy, featured female roles, dystopian future, social media
    In a future world, where we have forgotten how to cry, a woman is suddenly crying tears. A 10-minute play asking what truly makes us human.

    "MYA: Look, do you need to scroll? Would that help you? That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re feeling anything."
  • The Young Woman is a Boar by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: Surreal, dangerous women + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental
    Keyword: Surreal, dangerous women, romantic relationships
    Nadia and her boyfriend Lionel are fighting. He wants to go to a party, she wants him to delete pictures off his phone. She hears a wild boar outside. He doesn't. She may or may not be turning into one too.
  • Jaldee / Hurry (The Desi Icarus of Wall Street) by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: drama, fable/folktale + 2 more
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    Keyword: 1980s New York, South Asian + 8 more
    Genre: drama, fable/folktale, period, tragedy
    Keyword: 1980s New York, South Asian, Immigrant stories, immigrant story, wall street, Ancient Greek Update, American drama as a Greek tragedy, Icarus, Diaspora, memory
    On Wall Street in 1987, Tariq, a young and ambitious Pakistani immigrant is clawing his way up the corporate banking ladder in hopes of becoming the youngest Vice President to date. But in the American world of 80s excess and with Black Monday looming, what will be the true cost to his relationships, values, and identity?
  • Rope by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: feminist, sexual assault + 4 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: feminist, sexual assault, Effects of trauma, forgiveness, wounds, smart women
    Beth and Jude, a seemingly happy couple, prepare for a wedding reception in their Connecticut hotel room. As Jude begins work on his best man speech, he runs into a childhood friend, Violet. She’s happy to see Jude, and as the night continues on, befriend Beth too. But Violet knows secrets about Jude’s past. And what she knows could destroy those around her. ROPE explores the wounds we carry, forgiveness and...
    Beth and Jude, a seemingly happy couple, prepare for a wedding reception in their Connecticut hotel room. As Jude begins work on his best man speech, he runs into a childhood friend, Violet. She’s happy to see Jude, and as the night continues on, befriend Beth too. But Violet knows secrets about Jude’s past. And what she knows could destroy those around her. ROPE explores the wounds we carry, forgiveness and fault, and how a single event can bind us all together, even a decade later.
  • Water Lily by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: drama, tragedy
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    Keyword: Surreal, woman vs nature + 7 more
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    Keyword: Surreal, woman vs nature, country, flashbacks, dark, man vs nature, memory, generational memory, climate change
    A woman returns home after a long absence to save her grandmother's dilapidated cabin that sits on protected marshland. Weaving the past and present worlds of the characters, a history of dreams, loss, and paralysis to the changing world around us is revealed. A play that explores how some of us can never leave places or events behind, too wounded by an environment that will never cease to change with or...
    A woman returns home after a long absence to save her grandmother's dilapidated cabin that sits on protected marshland. Weaving the past and present worlds of the characters, a history of dreams, loss, and paralysis to the changing world around us is revealed. A play that explores how some of us can never leave places or events behind, too wounded by an environment that will never cease to change with or without us.

    Semifinalist for Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, selected for the Sundance Institute Playwriting Workshop
  • Baba, Jee (Father, Yes) by Ayesha Siddiqui
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: family, alcoholism + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: family, alcoholism, Fathers and Daughters, mixed race, South Asian
    A South Asian take on the classic father/child drama motif. Maria, the daughter of a Pakistani father and an American mother, lives in New York City with her boyfriend Dave. On the eve of Hurricane Sandy, her father (Baba) comes to visit from Pakistan for the first time in years. Trapped inside while the storm rages on, Maria, Dave, and Baba must all confront their differing views on culture, love, and...
    A South Asian take on the classic father/child drama motif. Maria, the daughter of a Pakistani father and an American mother, lives in New York City with her boyfriend Dave. On the eve of Hurricane Sandy, her father (Baba) comes to visit from Pakistan for the first time in years. Trapped inside while the storm rages on, Maria, Dave, and Baba must all confront their differing views on culture, love, and belonging. In the end, they find that what they all want is perhaps not so different after all.

    SCRIPT AVAILABLE BY REQUEST.