‘A play at Mall of the Emirates changed my life’: Dubai-bred actor Niraj Nair carves a niche in New York’s theatre scene

Dubai: Meet Niraj Nair, a Dubai-raised actor hustling in New York City, working as an usher and marketing manager by day, but making waves in the highly competitive Off-Broadway theatre by night.

“I remember watching a play at Dubai’s DUCTAC theatre [now closed] at the Mall of the Emirates. The Q Brothers performed Othello: The Remix, and I loved how they made Shakespeare so accessible with hip-hop twist. It was my first real entry point into theatre,” said Niraj Nair from New York over Zoom.

That early spark also made him realise that even classical Shakespeare, intimidating and alien to many, could captivate someone far removed from its original world.

“I was born in Dubai to Keralite parents. I was there for about 12 years, then spent a year in Australia before finishing middle and high school in Singapore. I moved straight to New York after getting into NYU Tisch, which had been a long-held dream. Since then, I’ve been starting my career and making waves in the Off-Broadway space, which has been very exciting for me."

Like most acting hopeful, he wanted to break into films and television but a few gigs later he felt theatre should be his major focus. And his upbringing across the Gulf, Australia, and Singapore gave him that much-needed global perspective.

“I had an international upbringing because I attended an international school surrounded by students of all nationalities. My parents really had this understanding of my identity as an Indian, sure, but also crucially, kind of belonging to the Indian diaspora. And with that came the leeway, the allowance for more aspiration to kind of exist in western spheres as well.”

But being a South Asian actor in New York is both opportunity and challenge.

“I hear different stories every year about whether it’s sort of in my benefit to belong to a minority group and be in this phase of the industry where they’re looking to incorporate more diverse voices on stage. And then I’m also kind of facing this other challenge where that may be the case, but there are fewer roles for us, and so we’re all competing for just one spot, and it’s difficult." But finding his tribe helped him land on his feet.

"I’ve been lucky to find that the people who look like are very gracious and don’t feel a kind of animosity out of like a scarcity mindset. Everyone’s been encouraging and helpful because they all know how difficult it actually is."

In the ten months since graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, 23-year-old Nair made his Off-Broadway debut at Classic Stage Company, took on lead roles at Obie Award-winning The Tank and Target Margin Theater, and was selected as a creative collaborator with Clubbed Thumb at Playwrights Horizons, one of the city’s most respected theatre institutions, where he’ll return this summer.

He was also chosen from 240 applicants for one of sixteen spots in The Actors Center’s Mentorship Program for Emerging Artists, where he is guided by seasoned Broadway and television actors.

Auditions, he says, are a test of resilience.

“A lot of rejection is baked into this business, and auditions come in waves. There are periods of like a month or two where it’s very sparse. There are periods where lots of things are happening, but rejection is definitely part of my journey."

But how does he manage to stay sane and ground amidst such uncertainty?

"You need to keep remind yourself that you’re doing the right thing. So I think I’ve learned not to ride the success too high, or the failures or the low points too low, but to just generally kind of keep a cool head. And that’s where my Dubai upbringing very much comes into play.” He's a hardcore realist, but is still ambitious.

“I hold day jobs, and most people I know does the same too. Thankfully, I work as an usher, and I also work in sort of freelance for a nonprofit, doing their marketing. So that pays my bills!”

But his goal?

“I’m committed to bringing South Asian and diasporic stories into rooms that have historically had little space for them, and the UAE is where that started."