Vir Das set for residency at New York's Lincoln Center Theater with ‘Hey Stranger’

New Delhi: Globally popular comedian-actor Vir Das will bring his new show Hey Stranger to New York’s iconic Lincoln Center Theater later this year, marking a rare residency for an Indian artist at the prestigious venue.

Das, who won the 2023 International Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series for his Netflix special Vir Das: Landing, will perform his show at the venue from October 29 and November 9.

In theatre and live performance, a residency refers to an artist staging multiple shows at the same venue over a fixed period of time, rather than touring.

The Lincoln Center has hosted some of the world’s most celebrated artists, including Indian legends such as sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, shehnai exponent Bismillah Khan, Carnatic vocalist M S Subbulakshmi and Pandit Ananda Gopal Bhose.

With Hey Stranger, Das will bring Indian stand-up comedy to the landmark stage.

For the show, the 46-year-old will be collaborating with Tony Award-nominated director Moritz von Stuelpnagel and Seaview, the company behind acclaimed Broadway and Off-Broadway works such as A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Slave Play, Good Night, and Good Luck and Hold On to Me Darling.

"There is nothing more exciting than the bottom of a ladder. Where you’re playing with people better than you, out of your depth, and you have to learn, and push your craft to meet a truly global standard. For me that’s always been Broadway. In this case Broadway and 65th.

"It’s been a dream forever to do a run. I’ll be at the Lincoln Centre Theater, starting my first ever residency, doing Indian comedy for the world. I hope you’ll come see," Das said in a statement.

He added that performing at the same venue that has hosted Indian greats like Ravi Shankar and M S Subbulakshmi is both an honour and a responsibility.

"Comedy may be a different medium, but at its core, it is still about human connection, about reaching across cultures and languages to find what binds us together," he added.

Hey Stranger, Das said, was born out of a desire to "connect, to laugh, to reflect, and to embrace our shared strangeness".

"The fact that I get to share this with an international audience, at a venue that has hosted the best of the best, is the kind of dream I couldn’t even imagine when I first started out," the actor-comedian said.