Playwrights Horizons Will Remount Shayok Misha Chowdhury's Rheology

Playwrights Horizons, in association with the Bushwick Starr, will present the Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, and Ma-Yi Theater Company’s production of Rheology, running April 14-May 16 in its Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Written and directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, it stars the artist and his mother, esteemed theoretical physicist Bulbul Chakraborty, in her first-ever appearance in a professional play—for which she won an Obie Award for Performance.

Bulbul is obsessed with the mystery of sand: how it flows like a liquid, but then jams into a solid. Misha is obsessed with his mother. But they’re running out of time. In this collaboration, an artist son and his scientist mother challenge each other to a high-stakes experiment.

Zachary Stewart wrote in his TheaterMania review of the 2025 Bushwick Starr run, “It is a delightful reminder that something that might at first appear uninteresting (a theatrical exploration of a mother-son relationship, sand) often conceals much mystery.”

The creative team includes scenic designer Krit Robinson, video designer Kameron Neal, lighting designers Masha Tsimring and Mextly Couzin, sound designer Tei Blow, costume designer Enver Chakartash, dramaturg Sarah Lunnie, music director and cellist George Crotty, and directing consultant Caitlin Ryan O’Connell.