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in this, and vice versa. It took me a while to figure out what I actually want to say with this.

Was it easy letting go of some of the characters?

It was really easy! Which was why I could tell that it was the right choice. I feel really bad because some wonderful actors portrayed those characters, but it’s no reflection on them. It was just me realizing: ‘Oh, I don’t really need them, to tell the story I need to tell.’

On the subject of history that you’ve mentioned earlier, this was majorly inspired by real times, people, and events and the seed of it all was planted because of the women harem guards during the Mughal Empire. So, it’s deeply rooted in and highly informed by history. Yet, you have made decisive choices that distinguish the world of House Of Joy from known historical practices. Namely religion, where this world doesn’t have a religion. How did you arrive at this choice?

Honestly, when I read the histories of the women of the Mughal Empire, their religiosity is so important and so much at the forefront. And it’s not necessarily something they would consider as religiosity in the way we would now. It’s just culture, it’s life, it’s practice, it’s how you live! But I’m not Muslim, and I didn’t want to speak on that. I don’t have the necessary authority or the language to really inhabit that, and to see the world from the point of view that these women saw back in the Mughal Empire. What’s much more interesting to me is how systems around the world are set up and often justified through religion. But many times those systems are strikingly similar. So what happens when we remove, for instance, a religious justification for a harem? Because there’s something else underneath that, much more primal, that leads to such a system being set up. What happens if we remove the religious justification for absolute power and absolute rule? There’s something underneath that, that still exists. That is what I’m interested in - what is that underlying urge? So this is a world in which religion may exist, but none of the characters talk about it. Instead, what they talk about is what they want and need in the moment. That’s how we approached the story. But I encourage people to actually read about the real women of the Mughal Empire, because they’re fascinating. And it’s quite beautiful to learn about all of the customs that they preserved and carried out across their lives.

Here’s a question that just came to mind. We never see any men physically on stage, yet, their presence is still very loud and clear in this world. How did you navigate portraying this present absence?

I went to an all-girls college in India, and even though we were all women inside, the mere fact that we had a bunch of rules and regulations and were constrained

in various ways was all due to the fact that men existed outside those walls. Even as we were living our lives inside, so many of our choices had been shaped long before we were born simply because of the existence of the patriarchy. But the simple answer is, when it came to this play, I just wrote about the characters I was interested in, and they just all happened to not be men.

Well, speaking of this and the amazing women that you’ve created… the way you write women in your work, and this work in specific, captures deep nuances where none of them are tokenized or essentialized, and they’re all deeply complex in their flaws…

When you’re describing it like that, I really hope that when I write men, I also write them as complex, multifaceted, interesting and flawed! Because that’s the job of a writer, to write characters who are all of that. It’s just doing the work to imagine who these people are, absolutely and fully. One of the things that’s very important is to note that no matter how difficult times are, or no matter how difficult situations are, people always find a way to laugh. People always find a way to find community, people always find a way to love. It’s just the truth, and to ignore that part of life, to reduce women and non-binary and trans people to the sum of their oppression, just feels like such a missed opportunity…

How do you depict these women within the existing power structure of the world of House Of Joy? Because the house is run by women, guarded and protected by women, but operates within a structure that is actually governed by men.

I mean, we navigate power structures all the time in our daily lives, constantly. It just happens that right now these are the power structures we live with, but they were different 50 years ago, they will be different 50 years from now. And we all just find a way to survive. And that’s what these women are doing. They are surviving.

I wholeheartedly agree. So, who is this play for and who would you consider to be its ideal audience?

Anyone who loves swashbuckling romantic adventure stories, come see the play!

Joy is in the title of the play. How much do you consider joy to be in the DNA of this world and what is the significance of it to the house and those who live in it?

Well, it’s very joyful to write this play. So there’s that! Even though the play can get very dark at times, I find a tremendous amount of joy in following these characters and seeing how they thrive in really difficult situations, and seeing the choices that they make. I think a community of women can be a really joyful place, and I’ve experienced that in my life. But also, of course, as you will see in the play, the title is slightly