Wives

Jaclyn Backhaus is a playwright, screenwriter, and educator hailing from Phoenix, Arizona. Her Off-Broadway plays include OUT OF TIME, WIVES, INDIA PALE ALE, Men On Boats, and YOU ON THE MOORS NOW. She has developed theater, film, and TV work with 1497 Features Lab, Sundance, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Berkeley Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, The Public Theater, and Two River Theater. She is currently a New Dramatists resident playwright, a core member of The Kilroys, and co-founder/creative director of Fresh Ground Pepper, an artistic process lab in NYC. Wives had its world premiere Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in September 2019.

Arpita Mukherjee is a NYC based director and writer who recently made her Broadway debut as the resident director of The Kite Runner. Arpita previously directed Bollywood Kitchen by Sri Rao (Geffen Playhouse), House of Joy by Madhuri Shekar (San Diego Rep), and Eh Dah: Questions for my Father by Aya Aziz (Next Door @ New York Theatre Workshop). Arpita is the Co-Book Writer of Monsoon Wedding, The Musical, which recently had its NYC premiere at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Arpita has developed work at the Public Theater, WP Theater and O’Neill Theater Center, amongst others. She is a 2021 Resident Director at the Drama League, a 2018 - 2020 Women’s Project Lab Member and a 2018 Eugene O’ Neill National Directing Fellows and an alumni of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Arpita directed Running, a film written by and starring Danny Pudi and co-wrote the screenplay for the Disney+ Hotstar film Gulmohar with director Rahul Chittella. Arpita is currently developing projects for WIIP, AMC, and a Netflix feature directed by Mira Nair, with music by Pharrell Williams. Arpita is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Hypokrit Live Arts NYC.

Winking and exuberant! Jaclyn Backhaus’ WIVES is a swift and playful feminist manifesto.