Priyanka Shetty: Theatre as Resistance, Memory as Magic

Priyanka Shetty is not just telling stories—she’s crafting a movement. The award-winning actor, playwright, and director based in Philadelphia has steadily built a body of work that blazes with urgency, compassion, and fierce artistic clarity. Whether on stage or behind the script, Shetty’s voice is one that challenges, questions and invites dialogue.

With humor, insight, and raw emotional truth, Shetty’s original works confront the pressing issues of our time—from immigration to racism, belonging to identity—with a fearless and often disarming intimacy. “My plays are not just performances,” she says, “they’re conversations. They’re a call to action.”

Her breakout one-woman show The Elephant in the Room—a deeply personal and political piece—has captivated audiences at major venues across the U.S. and abroad, including The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe at Assembly Festival, and a celebrated Off-Broadway debut at 59E59 Theaters in New York City. The show’s international acclaim marked Shetty as a rising force in solo performance.

Now, in 2025, Shetty is poised to premiere her much-anticipated second solo work, #CHARLOTTESVILLE, at the Helen Hayes Award-winning Keegan Theatre in D.C. This searing exploration of the 2017 white supremacist rally and its aftermath has already garnered national attention. It is the second instalment in her ambitious Triptych of Solos, a trilogy that concludes with The Wall, currently in development with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

But even as Shetty’s gaze remains fixed on the fractures of our world, her latest work returns to the intimate terrain of ancestry and memory. Her new play AJJI—named after her maternal grandmother—is a stirring tribute to the women who shaped her. Combining puppetry, movement, and ritual, AJJI explores elder care, caregiving, and intergenerational storytelling. “The courage and boldness I bring to my artistic practice are deeply rooted in the legacy passed down through generations,” she shares.

Shetty’s heritage plays a quiet yet powerful role in her work. On her mother’s side (Vinoda Shetty), she is the granddaughter of the late Smt. Chandravati Shetty and the late Shri T. Narayana Shetty of Kowdoor Kolmermane. On her father’s side (M. Subodh Shetty), she traces her lineage to Moolur Bikiriguthu, the native home of her grandparents, the late Smt. Devaki Shetty and the late Shri Shyama Shetty.

These ancestral ties are not just biographical footnotes—they are creative wellsprings. In AJJI, Shetty breathes life into memory, bridging generations through form and feeling. “This piece,” she says, “is a way to honor my grandmother’s story and the thousands of women like her whose quiet resilience built our world.”

A graduate of the University of Virginia’s MFA Acting program, Shetty has taught in UVA’s Department of Drama and lent her voice to mentorship programs and screenwriting labs, including Open Screenplay's MFilm Lab in Canada and the 2024 Atlanta Indian Film Festival jury.

As her Triptych of Solos prepares for a coordinated nationwide premiere across multiple cities in 2025–26, Priyanka Shetty stands at the nexus of activism and art, past and present. Her work continues to light the way—not just with answers, but with the courage to ask the hardest questions.

Check out her website :

Priyanka Shetty's Website

Ajji:

AJJI is a new multidisciplinary play by Priyanka Shetty that honors the life and spirit of her grandmother, who endured a long and painful battle with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Through puppetry, spoken narrative, movement, and live music, the piece explores memory, caregiving, and the intergenerational bonds between three generations of women. The title, AJJI, meaning “grandmother” in Tulu—Shetty’s native language—is a nod to her cultural roots and the ancestral legacy that shapes her artistic voice.

Rooted in personal memory, AJJI began with a small gesture: during the early stages of her illness, Shetty’s grandmother would rub her thumb and forefinger together, as if trying to hold onto something slipping away. That simple motion became the emotional and performative entry point for the piece. Over time, the work evolved into a layered theatrical world—combining life-sized and miniature puppets, objects, ritual, and magical elements—to portray the stark reality of dementia, the vivid imagination of the mind in decline, and the resilience of familial love.

Initially developed during a residency with The Work in Philadelphia, and further explored in a workshop at Sandglass Theatre in Vermont, AJJI is still in its early stages but has already laid the groundwork for a powerful piece of theater. With continued collaboration among the director, puppeteer, dramaturg, and musician, Shetty aims to refine the script, deepen its themes, and prototype the visual and performative language of the work.

In addition to bringing attention to the emotional toll of caregiving and cognitive illness, AJJI also introduces American audiences to the rich cultural heritage of the Bunt community from Mangalore, India—an often overlooked diaspora. With empathy, intimacy, and craft, Shetty’s AJJI aspires to bridge cultures and generations through the transformative power of live performance.