Lankan stars in Broadway hit War Horse
View(s):NEW YORK— One of the great lifetime ambitions of any stage actor in the United States is to appear on Broadway, described as the “theatre district of the Great White Way” glittering in neon-lit marquees.
Sanjit de Silva. Pic courtesy broadwayworld.com
Sri Lankan-born Sanjit de Silva hit the bright lights at the age of 36 when he got a starring role in the highly acclaimed “War Horse,” a play which won five prestigious Tony Awards in 2011, including best play in an aggressively competitive field.
As the play did a two-year successful run, with the final curtain call last week, Sanjit graduated from an extra to a lead role in what the Chicago Tribune critic said was a “key scene” in the relatively simple children’s story about a young man and his beloved horse, searching for each other through the deadly quagmire of World War I.
Sanjit was the second Sri Lankan to play on Broadway following Yolande Bavan, the first to hold that distinction, and who was a guest of honour at the Monterey Jazz Festival last September to do a presentation on a jazz opera written by Dave and Lola Brubeck.
Sanjit’s stage and movie credits are a mile long. Besides “War Horse”, his off-Broadway credits include: “The Little Foxes”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Masked”, “Macbeth”, “Measure for Measure”, “Slipped Disc”, “In The Heart of America”, and “Indian Ink”.
Sanjit’s film credits include: “The Girl is in Trouble” (produced by Spike Lee), “The Company Men” (starring Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones), “August” (starring Josh Hartnett), “Arranged”, and “American Desi”, while his television credits include guest star roles on shows such as “Blue Bloods”, “The Good Wife” and “Law & Order”.
His writing credits consist of such plays as “Irish Eyes”, “Pulling the Lever” (co-written with Deepa Purohit), “American Family Project” (co-written with Deepa Purohit) and “Grace” (co-written with Deepa Purohit).
He is a member of Rising Circle Theater Collective, a company dedicated to furthering artists of colour in the American theatre (http://www.risingcircle.org/).
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