Shishir Kurup, is an actor/writer/director/composer and Books-On-Tape narrator born in Bombay, India raised in Mombasa, Kenya and the U.S. His one-man shows "Assimilation" and "Exile: Ruminations on a Reluctant Martyr" (the latter a commission from Highways Performance Space) have been seen in countless cities and universities nationally and internationally including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, London and Manchester, England. His essay "In-Between-Space" appears in "Let's Get It On: The Politics of Black Performance," published by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Assimilation is published by Rutgers Press in the anthology "Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing." He was profiled in author Mei Ling Cheng's book: "In Other Los Angeleses-Multicentric Performance Art." His solo performance piece "Sharif Don't Like It" examines the fallout from the USA Patriot Act and the disappearance of over two thousand South Asian and Arab Muslims and played in October '09 at the National Asian American Theatre Festival in NYC. He received his BFA in Acting/Directing from the University of Florida and his MFA in acting from the conservatory at U.C. San Diego. Shishir is a long-time ensemble member of the nationally renowned Cornerstone Theater 10 Company and was nominated for an Ovation Award for acting in Cornerstone's, "Malliere." He has also written over a hundred and fifty songs for Cornerstone, winning Garland and Dramalogue Awards for music composition in "Los Vecinos" and "Candude" (the latter directed by him and nominated for an Ovation Award for Best Musical of the Year); and for Acting in "Twelfth Night," "MedeaMacbethCinderella (MMC)"and "Los Biombos," directed by Bill Rauch, Tracy Young and Peter Sellars, respectively. He was composer for Cornerstone's adaptation of "The Good Person of New Haven" at the Long Wharf Theater and for a subsequent MMC production at the Yale Rep.