#6 Arianna Afsar's post-Hamilton career: a musical dedicated to the first Congresswoman
Political proclivities + Hamilton's Arianna Afsar's musical turned political fundraiser + Aavrani's Rooshy Roy on the Pod
Welcome to Trailblazers! We bring you trailblazing by and for South Asians every other Monday. Visit our IG, FB, and LinkedIn, and archives.
From HQ: We’re six issues in. If you like what you read, we’d love for you to encourage friends, family, or that stranger on the street to join our growing community of 200+. And scroll for our GOTV project 🇺🇸
Catching Fire 🚀 your news roundup
[TOPIC WARNING - third item]
📺 Kal Penn approves this message
Hasan Minhaj walked so Kal Penn could run. Though Netflix shuttered Patriot Act, Hulu has breathed life into a politically-driven show with Kal Penn at the helm. In the unscripted series, Kal Penn Approves This Message, he covers topics intended to mobilize Gen Z and Millennial voters in the run up to the election — from conversations with Clintons to coverage on climate change.
While most of us think of him fondly as Kumar or Kutner, Kal Penn has operated a career in politics in tandem with one in acting. In 2009, he visibly left TV show House to join the Obama admin as an Associate Director in the Office of Public Engagement. This series is yet another testament to his political proclivities and comedic prowess, so be sure to check it out, weekly on Freeform until the election.
🦸🏽♀️ Marvel gets its first Muslim superhero
It’s a big week for Trailblazers in television. Marvel has announced the arrival of its first-ever Pakistani-American, Muslim superhero, Kamala Khan. Newcomer Iman Vellani will play the hero and her alter ego, Ms. Marvel. This marks another move in a grand effort to diversify Marvel’s suite of stars, not just in terms of casting but in terms of the fictitious characters themselves.
[TOPIC WARNING]
📰 Protests erupt in India over gang rape
Two Dalit women have been gang raped and subsequently died as a result of their injuries in recent weeks. The official response in the aftermath has been horrid, as police cremated one of the women’s bodies without familial consent. Protests have since erupted across major cities in India, drawing attention to the continued horrors of gender and caste-based violence, to which Dalit women have been especially vulnerable.
Recently, the conversation around caste discrimination against the Dalit community is one also being held here in the United States. Dalit individuals working in Silicon Valley have filed lawsuits against their non-Dalit Indian counterparts at major companies like Cisco, alleging discrimination in the workplace. All this to say, the caste system, although abolished, continues to have major repercussions across borders.
Hot off the Pod 🎧 Rooshy Roy
A conversation with Rooshy Roy, the co-founder and CEO of Aavrani. Aavrani is a premium skincare brand for women, inspired by ancient Indian beauty traditions and rituals. Rooshy co-founded Aavrani in 2017 while at Wharton. To date, the company has raised upwards of $2 million in funding. In the last several months, she not only launched Aavrani 2.0, but was also recently named a Forbes 30 under 30.
Rooshy’s no ordinary entrepreneur. She gets candid in this conversation, sharing her triumphs and challenges — from a chance meeting with her now co-founder to navigating a complex relationship with her brand, and by proxy, her heritage. She delineates what it means to be Founder versus a CEO, and what it means to infuse a piece of yourself into your work, every step of the way. Ultimately, this episode is a leadership crash course from a trailblazing South Asian woman intent on making South Asian beauty the next big thing.
Fireside Chat 🔥 Arianna Afsar, Hamilton Star and Singer-Songwriter
Arianna Afsar is best known for her starring role as Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in the Chicago production of Hamilton. But Ari has had a stage presence all her life. She won the title of Miss California in 2010. While at UCLA, she made it to the semi-finals of American Idol, after which she pursued musical theater. A testament to her passion for the theater and women’s rights, Ari is a co-creator of Jeannette, an original musical that honors Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress in 1916. Ari also works closely with the ACLU of Illinois and opened for Michelle Obama at the United State of Women in 2018.
What inspired your latest project, the musical Jeanette, which is about the first woman elected to Congress?
As you mentioned, I was in the Chicago production of Hamilton, and we opened a month before the 2016 election. That started the process of changing how I viewed art and the power of art. We all get involved with our community when it’s being affected, which is something that we have to take note of and change, but basically, I got extremely involved with the ACLU after the travel ban. I wanted to volunteer as much as I possibly could. Volunteering meant getting folks together and working outside of my skillset of producing to hand out pamphlets and doing whatever else needed to be done.
I also, selfishly, needed to surround myself with badass women in the process. And so I did that. I was able to surround myself with women like Tina Tchen and Valerie Jarrett, the Chiefs of Staff in the Obama administration. Simultaneously, I was telling this beautiful Hamilton story eight times a week, and I started to question, ‘How can we grow as a society when we don't know who our foremothers are?’ So like a typical millennial, I googled the first woman elected to Congress, and discovered Jeanette Rankin. I found that she was elected four years before the ratification of the 19th amendment and that was the impetus to tell this story.
Once you discovered her, how did you end up bringing the musical to life?
When I discovered her, I realized that no one knew who she was. I would ask all my contemporaries thinking I must be the only person who doesn't know of her, but nobody knew. It's really crazy and sad, and I read a statistic that something like 5 percent of recorded history in the United States is about women. And so, I knew I needed to do something about it.
So I wrote a concept album about her. I started performing this music at the Women's March and United State of Women. And then, one of my good friends connected me to Lauren Gunderson, America's most-produced playwright. We scheduled a call and I sent her the music ahead of time. And this introductory call ended up turning into a brainstorming session. By the end of it, she was like, “Are we are writing a musical together?” And I always joke that I guilt-tripped her into it because Lauren, more often than not, focuses on historical females and queer protagonists in her plays. And Jeanette is a historical queer female in history that no one knows about. And so I guilt-tripped her being like, “You don't know who Jeanette Rankin is?” And she was like, “Aw man, I have to do something about that!”
How are you producing it in a virtual world?
Just last week, we actually finished a virtual 29 hour reading which was weird but it went super well. It’s exciting because I think we're on the trajectory of heading to Broadway whenever it returns. Playbill said that we are Broadway Bound so I'm going to take them to their word.
But Lauren and I are also doing something very cool: we're offering the 25 minute virtual musical to any progressive candidate running for local, state, or federal office for their virtual fundraisers. We’ve probably done around 20 fundraisers thus far — for statewide candidates in North Carolina, to Mark Kelly who's running in the Senate, to Senator Doug Jones in Alabama, to Tammy Duckworth, the junior State Senator of Illinois, to Cori Bush in Missouri. We've had some incredible folks that we have been able to support and endorse through this special project. The specificity of Jeanette’s story, as the first woman elected to Congress, really inspires a lot of hope and enthusiasm.
Stay tuned for more Playbill & politics: the pod drops in the next issue!
Campaign Trail🇺🇸blazers
When our community shows up to the polls, we all win. So this week, we’re sharing with you all the go-to orgs for you to get the vital election info you need as a South Asian voter. Check out the detailed list here, compiled by our Editorial Fellows: Aashna and Shubhankar. 29 days to go! Follow our election updates on Instagram.
Opportunities and Events
Check out our database. To access, enter “vote2020” — the code changes with every newsletter, so be sure to subscribe. To submit, email us trailblazersmediaco@gmail.com
Like what you see? Let us know! Until next time.