Ari Afsar

Biography

Ari Afsar (she/her) is a Bangladeshi-American mixed race singer, songwriter, and storyteller who believes in the power of art changing culture, and culture changing policy. A graduate of Ethnomusicology from UCLA, Afsar released her album, WE WON’T SLEEP, distributed by Sony Masterworks in 2020. She just finished her Artivism fellowship at the Tony-award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition –which culminated in an Abolition song cycle- and just started her Dramatist Guild Fellowship. This past summer she was selected for Groundfloor at Berkeley Rep with her new musical THAT GIRL, book writer: Rehana Lew Mirza. Her work has been commissioned/featured at the La Jolla Playhouse (WOW Festival’s ALLEGORY), McCarter Theatre (commissioning I & YOU: THE MUSICAL with book writer: Lauren Gunderson), Clarence Brown Theatre at UTK (developing comedy-musical TEACHER OF THE YEAR), and NMTC at the O’Neill, where she won the 2019 Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist Award for JEANNETTE (book writer Lauren Gunderson & Jordan Ealey). Afsar has opened for Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Gloria Steinhem, and Hillary Clinton and just made her sold-out Joe’s Pub Solo Show debut featuring music across her discography. She starred in the top 10 Netflix movie WEDDING SEASON, composed with Pasek & Paul for Shawn Mendez in Sony’s LYLE LYLE CROCODILE (TYA Premiere at Pasadena Playhouse), originated Eliza in Chicago's HAMILTON, starred in the world premiere of BHANGIN’ IT at La Jolla Playhouse, awarded top 10 at MISS AMERICA as Miss California, and placed top 36 on AMERICAN IDOL. She is currently an MPA candidate at NYU Wagner.