Vidhu Singh’s pioneering efforts as theater director, dramaturg and scholar have contributed to the visibility of South Asian theater.

Vidhu completed a Master’s degree in Dramatic Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a doctorate in Theatre from the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Asian Theatre program. During her doctoral research in India, she became the only scholar to document a historic regional experimental theater movement of the 90s, focusing on three prominent theater companies.

Vidhu founded RasaNova Theater in 2004 to produce bold new plays with a focus on the theater of South Asia and its diaspora. Recent directing highlights: Saviana Stanescu’s Waxing West and Shahid Nadeem’s Burqavaganza, both at Brava Theater; Dancing on Glass by Ram Ganesh Kamatham, selected for the National Asian American Theater Festival; and Aditi Kapil’s Rickshaw Girl, with Bay Area Children’s Theatre. National theater actions at Brava Theater and Oakland City Hall include Every 28 Hours Plays: Short Plays in Response to America’s School Shootings  and After Orlando: An Evening of Plays in Response to the Pulse Nightclub Shooting.

Vidhu has worked as the Managing Director of the Asian American Theater Company and taught theater at Foothill College. She is a resident artist at Brava Theater and core member of Theatre without Borders. 

Vidhu’s passion for dramaturgy emerged from the need for culturally knowledgeable dramaturgs for diverse new plays as well as South Asian plays translated from regional languages. Recent dramaturgy highlights: House of Joy by Madhuri Shekar at Cal Shakes, August 14 – September 1, 2019 as well as for Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2018, and Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient 2017 Festival of Short Plays.

A graduate of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Vidhu is a founding member of World Wide Lab, an international directors’ collective. She co-directed plays for its inaugural residency at The Watermill Center in 2011 and for subsequent residencies at Irondale Center, Brooklyn in 2012-2013 followed by Teatro Due, Rome in 2014. Since then World Wide Lab has completed residencies in Taipei, Syros, Toronto, Thunder Bay and Berlin.

Photo credit: Kevin Berne. Pictured: Hamida (Emma Van Lare) and Roshni (Sango Tajima) in House of Joy by Madhuri Shekar