Istvan Dugalin ➤

Perhaps his work resonates so strongly with me because it feels in conversation with my hazy yet richly textured memories of India, having visited in my early twenties, offering intimate insight into a place I experienced only—though quite intensely—as a guest. This was three decades ago now, but the two-month experience left its mark. So, too, have these thoughtful and vivid theatre pieces.

Allow me to introduce you to Kush Shah, an artist whose lyrical and meditative work I’m deeply invested in. A recent graduate of York University’s BFA film production program, currently working on his MFA in Screenwriting, he has written and directed two consecutive Toronto Fringe productions that were, for me, highlights of each festival. Mumbai (Bombay), a fraught urban space for which he harbours both affection and disdain, looms large in these poetic episodes of self-discovery.

Before I knew him as creator, I encountered Shah as a performer in one of the most baffling and surreal experiences I’ve had at the Toronto Fringe—or theatre generally. As a spectator and critic, AHAHA threw me off balance. Though I could barely wrap my head around the damn thing, I was swept up in it regardless. I loved its cartoony artifice and exhilarating impenetrability.

This unhinged bit of theatrical lunacy was the brainchild of Ezequiel Garcia, also a York film student. I’m down for art to fuck with me a bit, so I certainly didn’t want them to kill all the mystique by explaining it to me, but I was curious what the gestational deal was.

Immersed in the Guelph theatre scene, they struggled. Well-intentioned theatre teachers and peers were vaguely supportive… from a certain distance. “When you find your people, you’ll do great.” An attitude Garcia found hurtful at the time.

“No one wanted to claim me.”

In Toronto, though, they did find their people. Drawn to Garcia’s vision, a small band of allies pitched in to provide costumes, props, performance and motivation to see the Fringe project through to completion.

Much like the show they crafted, Garcia’s energy is buoyant and infectious as they express themselves in a manic, elliptical stream.

“…I finished the script for AHAHA after I watched Tesuo: The Iron Man… and I was like… if these guys are doin’ this… and they’re doin’ whatever the fuck they want… they have a TV in it… at some point that film becomes a commentary on television… I have a commentary on television!”

The production was as chaotic to mount as it was to experience, with technical glitches demanding impulse, innovation and spontaneity.

“It felt like a real battle for the craft and for the art!”

With bittersweet nostalgia, they reflect upon it as “a stamp of what Toronto meant to me at the time.”

Garcia and Shah, along with a handful of other creators, are founders of CinemaClub, an artistic collective dedicated to the cultivation and exhibition of BIPOC and queer projects. One of those was a 2024 Toronto Fringe production called Elephant Song, created by Shah—an observant, densely poetic work. I was curious to finally hear, from the artist, how it came to be.

“My paternal grandparents live in the north of India and I was taking a trip to their house and passing by this place called Rishikesh, a site of pilgrimage, and I thought it would be very interesting to tackle faith because I grew up in a very religious family.”

A story his grandfather told about encountering an elephant in the street got him thinking about a character confronting a mystical white elephant that throws their faith into question.

Following a cog in the country’s bureaucracy, Elephant Song immerses us in his soaring imagination as he navigates a Kafkaesque job and interrogates religious hypocrisy and governmental corruption in the wake of tragedies both personal and public. It’s all deeply considered and very sensual—a tone poem.

Reflecting on the experience of mounting Elephant Song: “It gave me a lot of faith and confidence because of the love that Eze (Garcia) and Arjun (Kalra) and everyone else brought to the table.” Garcia produced this venture and Arjun Kalra, soon to graduate from TMU’s acting program, played the lead.

Kalra, buzzing with affection for it, reflects on the experience: “It was one of my first times working with a director where they had a very specific vision for everything that was being developed, which was, honestly, both exciting and nerve-wracking for me because it created so much pressure.”

Shah himself recalls the more creatively congested early parts of the rehearsal process for Elephant Song and a crucial realization that cleared those collaborative pathways.

“At a certain point, I just need to leave the performers alone rather than impose my projection of what I want it to look like. It’s always an interesting negotiation.”

“I’m really grateful,” Kalra reflects, “that we were able to find that opening and have a dialogue about what each of us needed to achieve what we want.”

Ultimately, they landed on a collaborative process where “It felt like everyone had a say in the choices that were made.”

The following year, at the 2025 Toronto Fringe, Shah premiered Gaumukhi (Cow), another lyrical and haunting meditation on self-actualization within Indian society. Echoing many of Elephant Song’s thematic concerns, its language is similarly teeming with intimate, insightful and provocative imagery.

An animal figures prominently here too, but in an even more direct and surprising way—the protagonist is a cow, whom we follow through a series of formative episodes of idealogical discovery, violence and loss.

Like Elephant Song, Gaumukhi also features classical Indian music as an essential component. Beyond supporting the atmosphere of the piece, it is a dynamic element, performed live on stage with the actor, the musicians seemingly attuned to him.

Having grown up playing the tabla and living next to a music academy, music, Shah explains, has always been a part of his life and is a fundamental aspect of his artistic practice. Growing up with Bollywood has conditioned him to appreciate music as a central element of melodrama and it feels right to him.

“There is something very interesting about the energy live music brings to a performance art piece.”

“Theatre at it’s most heightened form,” Kalra chimes in, “is musical and movement heavy. It unites all the art forms into one which I feel really plays to the strength of Kush’s pieces so far.”

The performers know there will be musicians performing live on stage with them, but Shah doesn’t unite them until late in the process, having developed a parallel rehearsal process to prevent the music from becoming an “emotive crutch.”

“When Arjun and Deval were ready to receive the music, it happened.”

And so we meet another artistic accomplice, Deval Soni, an actor and creative producer working in television, film and theatre. Originally from the west of India, he arrived in Canada in 2019 and heads Dramatic Jukebox, the boutique production company that co-produced Gaumukhi with CinemaClub. Soni was also the lead performer and toured with the production to three venues—starting in Toronto, following up with the Hamilton and Mississauga Fringes.

Soni channels his generous enthusiasm into a pragmatic analysis of the experience, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities for theatrical adaptation involved in taking the show from an intimate, versatile Toronto venue to a large, traditional proscenium set-up in Hamilton.

“Since the theatre was huge and the stage was big and it was just a solo piece, just me as an actor on stage, I felt an energy disconnect and that demotivated me.”

This lead to a crucial discussion with Shah, trying to unpack the problem.

“And then we realized one really big thing… that we were trying to hold onto the memory of Toronto… how about we let go of the Toronto feeling and discover the Hamilton venue and the Hamilton audience as a fresh piece.”

Having realigned themselves to suit the space, the show was back on track. He goes on to explain how the production was also rewarding from a producing and networking perspective.

“I was really surprised and satisfied by the fact that we were able to do Gaumukhi for almost eighteen shows. That gave us huge exposure as an indie production… Everyone was able to transfer the exposure into new works with other collaborators.”

A distinctive aspect of Shah’s work that I find especially compelling is how nuanced, intelligent and technically proficient it is without being opaque, alienating or mechanical. He maintains, with his writing, direction and collaborations, a delicate, assured specificity that is tricky for even seasoned theatre artists.

There are two subtly stirring and aesthetically persuasive moments I recall that illustrate this quality: the gentle human sway and fluctuating light of a mimed train ride in Elephant Song, a sequence that immerses us in the numbing monotony of urban routine; and, in Gaumukhi, a tender moment of death conveyed through elegant abstraction, the echo of a water droplet synced to a hypnotic flicker of blue light, offering us a glimpse at some spiritual incident that is both visceral and pensive.

Contemplating this evocative aspect of his vision, I was curious to probe his methodology. His response, both an admission of disadvantage and an acknowledgment of inherent strength, reveals a self-aware duality.

“I think this is the one place where my impulse wins over craft. Not having as many tools in my toolbox as a ‘theatre director’ is limiting, but I think it allows space for impulse.”

For both productions, he credits his collaborators’ intuition:

“I give them a lot of information, emotional information, not necessarily technical, and they are able to extract from their experience.”

Nearing the end of the conversation, Shah articulated some prickly observations about local South Asian theatre-making.

“Creators want to tell the audience about South Asia rather than explore it for themselves. I’m interested in having a dialogue with myself and my team and then presenting that dialogue to the audience. And I’m continually disappointed in South Asian Theatre in Toronto, and that’s something I’m trying to work on myself… how we can contribute meaningfully and not with anger and frustration.”

Thinking ahead, anticipating his future, he continues:

“I’m trying to find my place in the mainstream because I don’t want to be doing independent theatre forever. I also want to make money off of it. And I think it’s equally important to keep everyone sustained… my biggest disappointment is not being able to reach that target audience.”

His outlook is far from defeatist though, he goes on to sing his own praises, sentiments steeped more in gratitude than arrogance.

“It’s a little bit of a selfish pride, but people want to work with me again. And for nothing, essentially. They are giving me so much of their time for, number one, no financial renumeration and, number two, I don’t have as big a platform as some other South Asian creators… The fact that people are willing to put their faith and their trust in the process, even more than myself, is a matter of great pride for me.”

I hope I’ve succeed here, offered a snapshot that compels you to engage with and evaluate Shah’s work for yourself. To that end, I’m very excited to announce the imminent remount of Elephant Song, which will take place June 10 to 14 at Native Earth’s Aki Studio.

One of the most intriguing discoveries of my interview with Shah and his collaborators is the introspective purity of the work—offered to an audience in good faith yet not deliberately solicitous. While this attitude may seem somewhat self-indulgent, the ethos has resulted in deeply aware, attentive and compelling theatre.

Moving forward, though, Shah is challenging himself, breaking out of a comfort zone.

“There is some stuff in this version of the play that I know is honest, but I’m anxious about because it’s keeping the audience in mind which is something I’ve never done before.”

I invite you to meet him halfway. He and his cohorts may astonish you.

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Elephant Song
June 10 to 14, 2026
Native Earth’s Aki Studio
(585 Dundas Street East)