Kylee Pastore Asirvatham
“It was in my dormitory room during my freshman year of college. Normally, I would just exchange comments with my friends. This moment, I went into detail about growing up in Guyana and coming to the U.S. when I was 12 years old. There was silence in the room. No one was cutting me off. They just wanted to hear more. They were deeply engaged. I felt a power. I realized that an impactful story and performance asks for honesty, detail, and an open heart.” —CCNY English alum, actor, and playwright Ingrid Griffith
Griffith is a New York City-based actor and playwright whose career spans acclaimed stage performances and award-winning solo shows. Shirley Chisholm: Unbossed & Unbowed, her one-woman play celebrating the groundbreaking political leader and social justice advocate Shirley Chisholm, has toured nationally and earned widespread recognition, including the 2023 Suzi Bass Award for Outstanding Production about Social Justice and a nomination for Griffith as Outstanding Principal Performer. Griffith has garnered acclaim for Demerara Gold, her autobiographical solo show about a Guyanese girl’s journey to America, which explores themes of migration, identity, and family. Her acting repertoire includes diverse roles in off-Broadway and regional theater productions, with standout performances as Mama Nadi in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, and Hedda Gabler in Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. She is a recipient of numerous accolades, including the Danny Glover Power of Dream Award and a Guyana Cultural Award for her innovative storytelling.
As an actor, Griffith believes that circumstances affect who and what we become as individuals. She enjoys having the opportunity to step into someone else’s shoes. This can mean portraying characters who are fraught with either superlative or disabling behaviors or mindsets. She sees playing characters of different statuses, from various socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, or eras, as a chance to gain more knowledge about how other people think and about the world around her. She believes in having compassion for her characters and, by extension, for humanity. She continues to use her platform to shed light on untold stories—like Shirley Chisholm’s.
Griffith first connected with Shirley Chisholm's story after watching a documentary about the Democratic candidates vying for the presidency in 1972. She reflected, "I’m from Guyana. The 1972 campaign was before I emigrated to the U.S. But I was surprised I didn’t know more about this African American woman who made history. She was the first at many things. But I hadn’t read about her in textbooks in the U.S. After all, she was part of U.S. history. After watching the documentary, I was curious to know more about her. So, I decided to set out on a discovery." What resonated profoundly with Griffith was Chisholm’s belief that America can fulfill its promises if individuals and communities take action, and her belief that Black people and women can drive meaningful change in this country.
Griffith sees plays like Unbossed & Unbowed, which aim to advance social justice and political awareness, as tools that help audiences see themselves in each other, examine their beliefs more carefully, and understand how positive change can happen in the world through direct action. “These stories show us that tragic parts of history can be repeated if we as citizens don’t take direct action,” she says. “They help us, also, to find our purpose.”