SPOTLIGHT
FITTING IN AND FEMME RAGE
Shohana Sharmin.
Shohana Sharmin doesn’t date much. There’s a reason for that. In the darkly comedic one-woman show Come Here Often? Bangladeshi-born comedian, writer, and theatre artiste Sharmin travels through her own memories to moments in her life when she split herself in two.
The divide between being Bangladeshi enough or Canadian enough, the forever tumultuous relationship between her body vs. her mind, or being straight vs. queer – and examines the ways she has tried to keep all those parts of her alive. Oh... and did we mention this all happens at a speed dating night?
Starting at age seven, Sharmin learned to divide herself into smaller parts. Being a bicultural, bilingual, bisexual in a world that constantly wanted her to fit into one box felt like too much. She spent countless nights wondering how to make sense of the hard parts of her story: the years of abuse, the eating disorder, the physical, emotional, and cultural alienation; and the struggle to belong and feel at home as an immigrant, and how to make these parts of herself “palatable” to her peers. Then one day, she started compartmentalizing – creating neat little boxes within herself to “fit in” and make sense of her own existence.
Come Here Often?, directed by Carly Heffernan (The Second City’s She The People), is a feminist show driven by a soft shade of femme rage – one in which audiences see a woman who has always tried to follow the rules and fit in, slowly begin to question and unravel the ideals she was taught to chase. It deals with the difficult parts of existing in this world as a woman with maturity and heart while also being absolutely funny and transgressive.
Sharmin is a proud Muslim queer woman of colour. She is a current cast member of The Second City Touring Company, and is the recipient of the 2020 Queer Emerging Artist Award at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. She is the creator and a cast member of the critically acclaimed award-winning sketch comedy revue Dead Parents Society. A member of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2019 Emerging Creators Unit, Nightwood Theatre’s 2019 Young Innovators program, and b current Theatre’s 2019 bcHub Emerging Artists cohort, Sharmin presented her first solo show Come Here Often? (directed by Akosua Amo-Adem) as part of 2019 Queer Pride at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. She is an alumna of the Featured Players at Bad Dog Comedy Theatre and of the Second City’s Improv and Longform Conservatories.
She has performed in comedy and theatre festivals across North America with her award-winning troupe Not Oasis. Her short stories have appeared in The Vault magazine, Broadview magazine, and Living Hyphen.
Shohana Sharmin is the creator of the podcast Finders Grievers on The Sonar Network. She wishes she could be more like her mother.
When and where: October 14-15, 2022 at 8 pm, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Cabaret Space, Toronto. Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door plus fees at tickets.buddiesinbadtimes.com.