Anu Yadav is a critically acclaimed actress, writer and theater-based educator dedicated to telling the stories of people pushed to the margins of public discourse. As a solo performer, Anu shapeshifts into characters from everyday life with both humor and drama. Her devised theater work sparks a powerful forum for people to reflect and listen to each other’s stories across social and economic divides.

As an actress, Yadav has performed with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Imagination Stage, Theatre Alliance, and African Continuum Theatre, as well as at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Strathmore Mansion and the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing.

As a teaching artist she worked with Young Playwrights’ Theatre, Capital Fringe Festival Youth Producers, Sasha Bruce Youth Works, Imagination Stage as well as facilitated workshops at various colleges, universities and high schools on themes ranging from identity, diversity, autobiographical-based performance and improvisation.

She co-founded the storytelling project Classlines, and wrote and performed her solo plays ‘Capers and Meena’s Dream that debuted to sold-out houses and toured nationally. She was featured in the documentaries Walk with Me and Chocolate City. She was a 2014 Western Arts Alliance ‘Launchpad’ Artist, DC Artist Fellow, Mercersburg Academy Fowle Scholar-in-Residence, Wellesley College Artist-in-Residence and Arts Midwest Spotlight Showcase Artist. She was a 2015 Center for Performance and Civic Practice Catalyst Grant recipient partnering with the Institute for Policy Studies. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and holds an M.F.A. in Performance from the University of Maryland at College Park. Her most recent play The Princess and the Pauper: A Bollywood Tale is a feminist adaptation of the Mark Twain tale produced by Imagination Stage February 2018 with a remount this fall. This summer Anu will be DC Public Library’s first Artist-in-Residence as part of the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, developing short plays inspired by the original historical movement as well as the new Poor People’s Campaign today, a grassroots movement to end systemic racism, poverty, war economy and ecological devastation. She is a 2018 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellow and Alternate ROOTS grantee. She is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association, Dramatist’s Guild, Alternate ROOTS, Network of Ensemble Theaters and the Poor People’s Campaign.