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Monday, June 21, 2004 - 7:00 PM

SALAAM 3rd Mondays
Geeta Citygirl, Artistic Director
celebrates GAY PRIDE 2004,
as we kick-off AWAAZ: our inaugural & annual South Asian Play Reading Series

AWAAZ* - New voices/ New plays
presents staged readings of two plays:

Brenden Varma's
SAFE SPACE
Taking place in a community center in present-day Manhattan, this full-length play takes you to meeting of a support group for young gay South Asians.

Featuring
Rita Garg as Nausheen
Sanjiv Javeri as Vish and Mr. Chowdhury
Priyanka Mathew as Mary
Maulik Pancholy as Raj
Tyler Pierce as Gilbert and Random Bus Passenger
Omar Rahim as Neal
Reena Shah as Umera
Brenden Varma as Vikram

Paul Knox's
WHAT FLAVOR IS YOUR SLURPEE
Place:  A 7-11 convenience store just outside Wilmhackey, South Dakota.
Time:  Way past any sensible person's bedtime.

Featuring:
Rupak Bhattacharya as Mohammad
Kristi Tomooka-Russo* as Lin
Nandita Shenoy* as Rani

Traditional Q&A and complimentary refreshments included.

SALAAM Theatre
16 West 32nd Street - 10th floor
Between Fifth Avenue and Broadway
New York, NY 10001

Admission: (nobody is turned away due to lack of funds)
$5 minimum
$10 suggested
$15 appreciated

Reservations RECOMMENDED:
Phone: 212.330.8097
Email: rsvp@SALAAMtheatre.org

About the Playwrights:
BRENDEN VARMA is an actor and dancer who has performed at various locations in Washington, DC, including the National Theatre, Constitution Hall, and the Gala Hispanic Theatre. In New York, he is a regular dance instructor at D.J. Rekha's immensely popular Basement Bhangra parties and has worked with Camara Dance Unlimited and Arya International.  Last year, SALAAM Theatre presented his one-act version of this play, SAFE SPACE.  The son of a Punjabi father and Maharashtrian mother, who met while both serving as captains in the Indian Army, he speaks Spanish and Portuguese.

PAUL KNOX's INFORMED CONSENT is currently a finalist in the Samuel French Best Short Plays of 2004 competition.  This past year he directed his KALIGHAT for the Indo-American Arts Council and the Baruch Performing Arts Center, and his GEHRI DOSTI:  5 Short Plays With A South Asian Bent ;-)  at Harvard University.  He is the Executive Director of Circle East (formerly the Circle Rep Lab) and a cofounder and trustee of the Tides Foundation - India Fund, which supports grassroots education and community building efforts among sexually marginalized groups in South Asia.

*AWAAZ means VOICE
The goal of AWAAZ, other than to expose our large and diverse SALAAM audience to new and emerging writing, is to develop voices that will go on to be valuable
storytellers about South Asian issues through entertaining theatricality and thereby add to the already diverse texture of the New York theatrical landscape.

* AWAAZ is not only to help emerging playwrights through staged readings and development workshops but also develop some of these plays with an eye to full
productions for SALAAM Theatre's 2005 Season.

Please join us for each installment of our AWAAZ Play Reading Series.  You never know what special talents you'll meet so just mark your calendars and be part of this growing movement of artists and activists.  For an energizing and engaging event, make it SALAAM time.