Minita (she/they) is a multi-hyphenate artist and healer who was born in Mumbai, India. Based in Los Angeles, they have a long history in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Minita is a 2022 NYSAF Pfaelzer Award Finalist. Her newest play, Nerve, was part of the 2023 Theatreworks Silicon Valley New Works Festival. Nerve began with support from The Ground Floor at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Additional support for Nerve granted by The Lucille Lortel Theatre, The Alcove New Play Development Program. She is also a librettist in Minnesota Opera Company’s New Works Cohort that launched in July 2022. Gandhi will be working on three commissioned pieces; a MainStage opera, a song cycle, and a chamber piece. They are all to be completed over the course of seven years. Her play Daal and Duty and The Sun and all it’s Sighs have been part of the Ripped Festival at American Blues Theater in 2022 and 2020. She has been a dramaturg for PCPA Theaterfest’s production of Much Ado about Nothing and Book-It Theater’s World Premiere production of Behold the Dreamers. They are the director/producer for a 5-episode Documentary Series: History is Now . Other directing/writing credits include the digital production of Hindsight is 2020 or how Raisin Rainbows survived a pandemic starring Tony Award nominee Cora Vanderbroek, and new work development and readings at CAATA, and Stage Left Theater.
Her play MUTHALAND has been featured on NPR, NBC News, and the Atlantic. It was Jeff Nominated for Best New Work and Gandhi was also nominated for Best Solo Performance in 2018. It has played at Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a participant of the CAATA Festival, and The Statera Foundation for Women in the Arts Conference at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (2016). It was workshopped at Silk Road Rising for their Solo Festival (2015), selected for the Ignition Festival of new plays at Victory Gardens Theater (2015), and for a special performance sponsored by the Indo-American Heritage Museum. Muthaland celebrated its World Premiere at 16th Street Theatre (2017). Since then it has been performed regionally (ie.PCPA 2019, virtually with Sierra Lancaster Productions, which starred Sierra Lancaster).It was last seen at Florida Studio Theater as an official selection of the NNPN’s Women in Playwrighting Festival 2019.
Muthaland has toured the US with special performances at universities and Minita teaches an accompanying workshop, "Using Art as Activism." As an activist and speaker, Minita was the keynote speaker for Commit2Change in 2018, a former PBS Pledge Host, and has been a professional host and MC for many fundraisers and events. She/they teaches workshops on artivism, and does work to support survivors.
Some of her/their regional theatre credits include Lookingglass Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. Minita can be seen in the recurring role of Dr. Prospere on NBC's Chicago Fire, as Musarrat in Brown Girls, and has appeared on Fox's hit show Empire, NBC's Crisis, ABC's Betrayal, Fox's The Chicago Code, and was The Onion News Network's anchor, Nina Shankar.
As an executive Gandhi has served as the Director of Content and Cultural Strategy for AGE (Advance Gender Equity in the Arts). In 2021, she/they focused on working with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) in her/their work with AGE, as their National Program Director . She is the former Co-Director for the StateraArts Mentorship Program for Women and non-binary individuals in the Arts, has led sessions on business leadership at National Conferences, created and developed a global women’s executive leadership program. Minita has worked with Pinnacle Performance (a global communication skills training firm) for over 5 years as a Master Instructor training senior executives in tech, finance, entertainment, healthcare, and STEM. She has been privately coaching executives and celebrities for over a decade in content, structure, and storytelling technique. At the core of Minita's stories and life she/they is a healer. If you are interested in learning more about her/their healing and manifestation work you can find her/their at www.minitastudio.com.