“For many languages, the journey from paper to screens has not been a simple one, there have been many struggles on the way to the digital realm, I want to tell one such story through my play FONTWALA!” – Shubhra Prakash, playwright and performer.
 
In 1990s India, Fontwala is an aspiring typographer and font designer of Indian languages who designs the Anglo Nagari Keyboard, one of the first software that allows typing of Indian scripts on the Latin-based keyboard. In the present time, Shilpi, Fontwala’s niece, has returned to India after spending two decades as an immigrant in the US to write the story of her uncle, Fontwala. Shilpi discovers what it means for a “complex” script to survive in a digital world and for a person with complex history to try and tell one story. What remains of an artist who becomes an entrepreneur? What remains of the aesthetic of a language digitized? What remains of a dream of returning to one’s homeland to live in after 20 years in the West?

Shubhra Prakash

Events

Past events

28 - 30 Jul, 2023

Fontwala · Theaterlab NYC

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