OCTOBER 2026
WIVES
By Jaclyn Backhaus
Directed By Arpita Mukherjee
Fresh, funny, and sharply relevant, Jaclyn Backhaus’s WIVES reimagines history through the eyes of the women beside “great men.”
With a South Asian cast and direction by Hypokrit Live Arts NYC co-founder Arpita Mukherjee, this whirlwind comedy travels from 16th-century France to 1920s India and 1960s Idaho, turning the spotlight on the overlooked voices who shaped the world. WIVES lands at a pivotal cultural moment—just after the 2024 election that saw South Asian American women make history in both parties, and as Los Angeles’s own Nithya Raman advances to the 2026 mayoral race. Instead of simply retelling the past, WIVES unravels it, reminding us that history is made by many, not just the few who make the headlines.
In Process: Jaclyn Backhaus on WIVES
An exclusive conversation with Jaclyn and the making of the 2019 production of WIVES presented at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater
August 25, 2019 – October 06, 2019
“This play offers its actors the opportunity to time travel, to play many characters, and to ultimately ask the question of what it means to be able to be fully seen for who they are, rather than who society supposes them to be. It is a play about how women might support each other in a world run by tyrant men, a play about how community is built by sharing abundance in the face of scarcity.”
JACLYN BACKHAUS
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
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.
PRAISE FOR WIVES
Winking and exuberant! Jaclyn Backhaus’ WIVES is a swift and playful feminist manifesto.
— Sara Holdren, New York Magazine“WIVES is a gleeful work of historical subversion.”
— Ben Brantley, New York Times“[…]The full ride of the play is more than worth it, fast and furious, imaginatively plummeting the depths of history and our human experience that will leave you feeling uplifted…”
— David Walters, New York Theatre GuideRead our COVID-19 Policy
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