Take a moment to discover more about me, my journey, and the passion for theatre that shapes every performance and story I bring to life.

Dr. Kanchuka Dharmasiri is an academic, theatre practitioner, writer and translator. She teaches literature, performance and critical theory in the Department of English at the University of Peradeniya and holds a Ph.D in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

Her short story collection, Tattooed Sherlock: Stories, was nominated for Best Collection of Short Stories at the 2024 State Literary Festival. Kanchuka recently edited Performance in a Time of Terror, Five Sinhala Plays from Sri Lanka (Routledge, 2021), translated by Ranjini Obeyesekere.

Her articles and chapters have appeared in various journals and books such as Frontiers of South Asian Culture: Nation, Trans-Nation and Beyond. Eds. Parichay Patra and Amitendu Bhattacharya. Routledge 2023 and “Voices from the Therīgāthā: Framing Western Feminisms in Sinhala Translation.” Translating Women: Different Voices and New Horizons. Eds. Luise von Flotow & Farzaneh Farahzad. New York: Routledge, 2017. 

Kanchuka has translated and directed plays such as Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, which won the State Literary Award for Best Translated Play Script 2018,and Woody Allen’s God. Her devised works include Subha, a transcreation of Rabindranath Tagore’s short story of the same name and Nodutu Aes/ Unseen Eyes, a multi-media performance based on Bertolt Brecht and Kumari Kumaragamage’s poetry. Her original play, Surpanakha juxtaposes the mythical past and contemporary times through the story of a time-traveling princess. Surpanakha was a finalist at the 2023 State Drama Festival.