The Indian man on Broadway

Vivek Tiwary is the “weird Indian kid” who made it on NY’s theatre scene, and he has Alanis Morissette to vouch for his success

It's a bit coincidental that this writer has been obsessing over Alanis Morissette’s legendary 1995 album, Jagged Little Pill, all of last month, in an attempt to feel better about the mad times we live in. To survive. 

Call it serendipity that the opportunity to interview Vivek Tiwary came by this week. Born in New York to Indian immigrant parents, Tiwary has taken the album to Broadway, as a theatrical show, which incidentally was nominated for 15 Tonys. We now hear, that it’s heading to Australia this fall and will be available for viewing on streaming sites, or in a recorded format, soon as well. 

But like Morissette, who gave a whole generation of women anthems for their broken hearts, Tiwary himself is an inspiration. He describes himself as the weird Indian kid from the Lower East Side, who made it in theatre. 

Vivek Tiwary

“As soon as I was allowed out of the house, I would go watch punk bands,” he says during a telephonic interview from New York. “And in downtown NY, every record store turned into a musical and experiential performance space every evening. I watched Starlight Express by Andrew Lloyd Webber and I came out of that screening and told my parents that I wanted to do just that.” He was 21 then, and now at 48, Tiwary has gone through the rigours of the American theatre rigmarole. Before Jagged, he made American Idiot, that remains Green Day’s defining album, that also won a Tony award. “American Idiot was very loud and male. So, I wanted to do a song from the female gaze, and Alanis’s album fit. It’s like it is written for stage—the show needs to start with a ‘I want’ song and she wrote a song called, All I really want, on the album. Then You learn ends the show. It was all there,” he says of the show that focuses on a family that is going through the trials of life. 

But, although the theatre community was inclusive, he had a hard time coming up through the ranks. “They were all like, ‘who is this boy?’ I was seen as the outsider. But I have to say that most people were intrigued about who I was and where I came from, and most people turned out to be supportive. But at that time, I was the only Indian, maybe the only person of colour, in the theatre community. There are very few even now,” says the producer. He says he decided to call his firm Tiwary Entertainment because “I wanted those two words to go together so that people know I am not just meant to be a doctor or engineer.” His dream seems to have come true. As he walked the ramp with Morissette one day, he told her, “If you had told me at 20, I would be doing this, I would have never believed it.” He describes the singer as one who wants things done her way, but is also open to collaboration. “And those are the best people to work with.”

Tiwary also has a graphic novel to his name, called The Fifth Beatle, about Brian Epstein, manager to the Beatles and the man responsible for the band achieving  cult status. “If a gay Jewish man from Liverpool could do it, a weird Indian can do it as well.” 

These days, Tiwary is working on taking the show overseas, and is busy with a teleplay based on the Fifth Beatle. “I am doing nine projects this year! 

Most of them are for television and theatre, but one is for the movies too.” Ask him about his connection with India, and he says he has a story to tell. “I came to India four years ago for the Comicon in Hyderabad, and among all the geeks, while I was talking about my book, I felt at home. I felt like I most belonged in India that day in Hyderabad. Does that answer your question?”

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