MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Aysha Zackria is a queer Pakistani-American dramatist, writer, and musician studying dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University. She amplifies opportunities for societal growth through creation. She was the dramaturg for Carnegie Mellon’s production of You on the Moors Now, supporting the creative team and audience toward a nuanced understanding of gendered violence. She received the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 2 Student Dramaturgy Award and was named a National Dramaturgy Fellow for her work on the production. She has written plays that examine social issues, including Pillow Fortress, Proximity, and Natural Law, which she produced at CMU. Her playwriting accolades include a commission by Horizon Theatre Company, an excerpt reading at City Theatre, and a national One Earth Award from Scholastic Arts and Writing. She has served as Script Editor at Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts. In the last five years at this non-profit, she encouraged high school students to make their voices heard by devising works of musical theatre. In 2019, she won the Miami Herald’s Silver Knight Award in English and Literature for her work as a tutor and advocate for improving access to literature in carceral facilities. Aysha is also an accomplished bassist with a background in music theory. She has played bass in fourteen musicals and on an album, Cosmic Caravan by Fox. On campus, she is Co-Chair of the Library Student Advisory Council, Secretary of the Thrifty Mellon, and Representative for the upperclassmen dramaturgs. She was named one of forty senior Andrew Carnegie Society Scholars for her outstanding engagement and academics.