INFO
| Name | Ankita Singh (she/her) |
| Born | 1996 |
| Country of Birth | India |
| Place of Residence | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland |
| Ethnicities | Indian (Punjabi) |
| Artform | Theatre, Screen |
| Decades Active | 2020s |
ABOUT
Ankita Singh is a writer, producer, director, and photographer based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland who collides multiple genres in her work — from action to thriller to drama to horror — telling Aotearoa Asian stories with ambition and humour. She received the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the Auckland Theatre Awards 2020, where she was described as “an absolute force, in particular driving storytelling by and for South-Asian and Pan-Asian artists and audiences - and Tāmaki Makaurau is all the better for it.”
Singh was born in Mumbai, India, was raised in Chandigarh and moved to Kirikiriroa, Aotearoa at the age of 7 with her family. She describes herself as an introverted child who eventually found the courage to do a speech in high school centred around the stupidity of ‘your mum’ jokes. It was well received by her peers and gave her some confidence in her artistic voice. She studied communications majoring in creative industries at Auckland University of Technology beginning in 2015, during which time she interned at Indian Ink Theatre Company doing marketing — creating campaigns for productions such as Mrs Krishnan’s Party and Murder House.
In 2017, while at Indian Ink, Singh met theatre-maker Ahilan Karunaharan, who invited her to produce First World Problems, the Agaram Productions (and Prayas Theatre) anthology series that features South Asian practitioners performing original short works. This was the impetus for the formation of Singh’s own production company, Oriental Maidens, under which she has since co-produced many theatre and film productions, such as Scenes from a Yellow Peril and Nathan Joe: Homecoming Poems.
Stemming from Singh’s interest in Muay Thai, Singh wrote her first play BASMATI BITCH (2023) “a neo-noir martial arts action-dark-comedy”. The script was developed over several years, beginning in 2018, through the Oryza Playwrights Lab, Proudly Asian Theatre’s Fresh of the Page programme, and Playmarket’s Te Hono programme.
Set in 2123, the play follows two South Asian heroines. The first is Shiva, an undocumented climate refugee and retired fighter struggling to survive in a dystopian Tāmaki Makaurau. Aotearoa has closed its borders to the world, rice has become a commodity due to crop disease and trade wars, and it is constantly raining in the city. Shiva meets Bisma, a bored immigration advisor, and the two of them find themselves embroiled in the underground rice trade and the realm of illegal mixed martial arts. They become indebted to Toby, a rice baron who needs to obtain a significant amount of rice in seven days.
As described by Jennifer Cheuk in Rat World:
Basmati Bitch shows us that “techno-orientalism” can be more than an afterthought. Here, it is a deliberate stylistic choice that speaks to diaspora, migration, nostalgia, and connection. Basmati Bitch has a strong symbiosis of story and style - a difficult feat to achieve.
The world premiere of BASMATI BITCH was directed by Kauranaharan and co-produced by Auckland Theatre Company and SquareSums&Co in association with Oriental Maidens. Singh was the first South Asian woman playwright to have a production presented by Auckland Theatre Company. The play proved popular even before it premiered, selling so many tickets during presales that the season was extended for a week. As Erin O’Flahetry notes in her review of the production:
It is a visual and auditory feast, taking stylistic cues from anime, comic books and video games. Te Aihe Butler creates a fun and slick language of sound effects, layering on top of the visual splendour and perfectly-paced action. The performers are all physically adept, creating exciting fight scenes and leaning hard into their larger-than-life characters. Karunaharan’s staging is dynamic, making full use of the inventive set (designed by Rachel Marlow and Bradley Gledhill) and elevating Singh’s tight and funny script to the realm of cinematic banger.
The play then inspired the creation of ‘GIVE ME BABIES’, which Singh wrote and co-created for TVNZ with Calvin Sang, who directed the episode. The half-hour action comedy was part of an anthology series titled Motherhood and centres a Chinese-Indian mother-daughter mixed martial arts duo. Ari, played by Roxie Mohebbi, is a woman in her thirties who doesn’t want children, but is afraid of telling her mother, played by Celeste Wong. Ari decides to enter an underground MMA fight to win the prize money and move to Thailand in order to avoid confronting her mother.
Outside of narrative theatre and film, Singh practices documentary photography and filmmaking. In 2022 she co-produced the documentary television series The Hustle with Mark McNeill, which was directed by Jenny Gao and followed five young Asian New Zealand entrepreneurs: Kris Fox, Jing Hé, Albert Cho, Harper Finn and Jessie Yu Mei Wong. As a photographer, she has documented several plays, development workshops, rehearsals, film shoots and local events since 2017. She has also worked with the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand to document notable Muslim women in Aotearoa.
Her desire to showcase Asian storytelling in Aotearoa drives all of Singh’s creative work, whether it be her own stories or those of others within her community. She notes that “Working with the Pan-Asian community, mentors and talented practitioners who took my silly ideas seriously, who took me seriously has been one of the most humbling and validating experiences of my creative career and life so far.”
LINKS
Key works / presentations
Theatre — As a writer
2023 — Basmati Bitch, Auckland Theatre Company, Tāmaki Makaurau
Theatre — As a producer
2022 — Scenes of a Yellow Peril (Co-producer), ASB Waterfront Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2019 — I am Rachel Chu, Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2019 — First World Problems 2.0, Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2019 — Woman of Citrus, Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2018 — First World Problems, Basement Theatre Studio, Tāmaki Makaurau
Screen — As a writer
2024 — 'GIVE ME BABIES', TVNZ (co-creator and writer)
Screen — As a producer
2023 — The Hustle, Three & Discovery (producer)
2022 — Nathan Joe: Homecoming Poems (co-producer)
2019 — 800 Lunches (Day One Shorts, previously Someday Stories)
Key awards
2021 — Piki Pitch Development Prize
2020 — CJ Cultural Foundation Internship, Asia New Zealand Foundation
2020 — Outstanding Newcomer Award, Auckland Theatre Awards
