Good things happen when we connect. Musical theatre duo Grill and Chowder (Laura Grill Jaye and Shayok Misha Chowdhury) visited Playbill Studios to present four of their hypnotically catchy collaborative songs as a part of the Playbill Songwriter series, bringing their blend of Western and South Asian musical stylings to usher in autumn.
Joined by vocalist Tomás Cruz, the duo were a tight and tiny team, performing their own material. Jaye played the Sing For Hope piano and her own guitar. The four songs—"White Bread," "Light Aliens," "Deus Ex Machina," and "Boatman"—can be viewed in the episode above.
Grill and Chowder are the recipients of a 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant, and their most recent collaboration, How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other '90s Trivia, was the first-ever musical to be honored with the Relentless Award, in honor of Adam Schlesinger and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Their work has been seen or developed at Ars Nova, New York Theatre Workshop, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, SPACE on Ryder Farm, NYMF, HERE Arts Center, and Joe's Pub. The duo wrote their first-ever musical, Artemis in the Parking Lot, for an ensemble of student performers at Meridian Academy, where Misha and Laura met as teachers in 2011.
Jaye is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, improviser, educator, performer, and music director. With the Laura Grill Band, Jaye has written and produced two records, Never Before and Tell All Your Friends, and toured nationally. She has collaborated with Jacob Collier, Audra McDonald, Luciana Souza, and Jason Moran. Jaye received her Masters in Jazz Studies from New England Conservatory and her Bachelors in Jazz Voice and Composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts. She is on faculty at Meridian Academy in Boston and MIT’s Music and Theater Arts program.
Chowdhury is the Obie and Whiting Award winning writer and director of Public Obscenities, recently named one of three finalists for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The bilingual play was a New York Times Critic's Pick and named Best Theater of 2023 by the New Yorker. It premiered at Soho Rep and went on to encore runs at Woolly Mammoth and Theatre for a New Audience. Chowdhury is also the recipient of a Princess Grace Award, The Mark O’Donnell Prize, and Drama Desk and Drama League nominations. A two-time Sundance Fellow, he is the creator of VICHITRA, a series of short films rooted in queer South Asian imagination. Chowdhury was a collaborator on the Grammy-winning album Calling All Dawns. A Kundiman, Fulbright, and NYSCA/NYFA fellow, his poems have been published The Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. He is currently collaborating with his physicist mother on Rheology, a concert-memoir, which will premiere in 2025 at The Bushwick Starr, as a co-production with HERE Arts Center and Ma-Yi Theater Company. He has a Masters degree from Columbia.
Sing for Hope harnesses the power of the arts to create a better world. Our creative programs bring hope, healing, and connection to millions of people in hospitals, schools, care facilities, refugee camps, transit hubs, and community spaces worldwide. A non-profit organization founded in New York City in response to the events of 9/11, Sing for Hope partners with hundreds of community-based organizations, mobilizes thousands of artists in creative service, and produces artist-created Sing for Hope Pianos across the US and around the world. The official Cultural Partner of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Sing for Hope champions art for all because we believe the arts have an unmatched capacity to uplift, unite, and heal. Learn more at SingForHope.org.
