Playwriting
My writing stems from my interests, my community’s questions, my collaborators’ virtuosities and my lifelong practice of keeping proximity to wonder. My writing is an offering of service and connection.
Mukta Phatak is a playwright, actor and teaching artist based in New York City. Her writing has been seen at the Children’s Theater of Charlotte, Ancram Opera House and in devised works as part of Fringe festivals. She has also written for children extensively through her work with Mind Body Music NYC. She has been recognized as a semi-finalist and finalist for the June Bingham Playwright Commission and was a Fall 2024 Workshop Theater Intensive Playwright. She is also a proud member of the WP Theater ‘24-‘26 cohort.
You Can Sit With Us
ABOUT THE SHOW
Fresh off the heels of a traumatic loss and hoping for a fresh start, teenage Asha is uprooted from her West Coast life to be closer to her family home in the Lehigh Valley. Amidst the cavernous hallways of her new high school, Asha meets the enigmatic Ashley: the school’s queen bee and one of the only other Asian Americans in their school district. Bonded by a shared history of loss, Asha and Ashley strike up a complex friendship – but around them, students are disappearing under mysterious circumstances. What was supposed to be a new beginning quickly turns into a nightmare, as Asha must confront demons both real and imagined in her quest for peace – and survival.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
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WP Pipeline Festival 2026
Greasey
In Development
ABOUT THE SHOW
We’re in one of the highest stakes environments in New Jersey - a predominantly South Asian high school - and the theater club is putting on Grease! The classic American assimilation musical resonates with the student actors, their high school society, and the immigrant parent audiences who are in their own adolescent years in this country. There’s music, drama, life imitating art and we leave thinking - what does it take to fit in?
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
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46-Minutes Theater Collective Writers Group - Winter 2025
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One-person performance of the piece - 15 minute excerpt
Made in Pakistan
ABOUT THE SHOW
A soccer coach meditates on family, connection, and his relationship to the land as he gets ready for an important game.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
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Original commission was for one actor at Ancram Opera House
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First draft complete of the full-length play
The Night Diary
Children's Theatre of Charlotte - Commission
TYA play adaptation of The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani
March 2023
4 actors, 80 minutes, ages 8+
ABOUT THE SHOW
Twelve-year-old Nisha is half-Muslim and half-Hindu struggling to figure out where she belongs. Her personal conflict deepens as India - the country she lives in - is divided into pieces during the Partition of 1947. When her father decides it’s too dangerous to stay where they are, they embark on a long and dangerous journey as refugees. Told through her journal entries to her mother, this stirring and heartfelt story reminds us that home is more than a place. It’s a feeling and a sense of belonging that comes from within.
2 / Charlotte Magazine: The Making of Children’s Theatre of Charlotte’s Production of ‘The Night Diary’
3 / BroadwayWorld
Dracula/Betal
ABOUT THE SHOW
A precocious preteen and her grandmother explore the story of Dracula woven through with fables from the ancient Indian stories of Vikram/Betal, which also feature a vampiric creature. This is a love letter to storytellers, to kids and their elders defining culture for first-generation Americans, and a story about learning and growing from the art we consume.
**This play is written as a collaborative script for 4 actors and an Indian Cultural School. The idea is to have the 4 actors play the original characters, while the cultural school uses their specific storytelling techniques (dance, music, etc) to convey the retold plotlines of Dracula and Vikram/Betal
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
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Originally commissioned for Trike Theater in Bentonville, Arkansas in collaboration with Ra-Ve Cultural Foundation
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First draft available upon request