HUMAIRA IQBAL (HI): Rabiah Hussain, I am truly honored to be interviewed by you today. Your work has been a profound source of inspiration for me, shaping not only my writing journey but also my path in life. You have been an integral part of why I am here in America today, pursuing my dreams with passion and purpose. Your dedication, talent, and voice have guided and motivated me in ways I cannot fully express. It is an absolute privilege to speak with you, and I am deeply grateful for this moment.

RABIAH HUSSAIN (RH): You are a source of inspiration for me! I've always loved working with you, and seeing you continue to achieve more and more in your writing journey. 

Let’s step back a little bit before we talk about Beige in America. UK versus USA. You grew up in London. You did all your acting work in London, your initial writing work in London. For you as a writer, as an artist, what has been different about New York versus London?

HI: Apart from funding, and American politics versus UK politics, just as an artist, it feels like in London we are more open to being a little bit rough around the edges, and not striving for perfection. I started my journey in America at Tisch School of the Arts in the dramatic writing program, and something I learned there was American commercialism. I felt like I had to be a little bit more commercial with my writing. I felt like I had to step back maybe a little bit more from British dark humor.

The entertainment for both countries is very different. If we bring an East London play full of East London slang, how will an American audience take that? The theater scene here is not the working class. So when they come to the theater and they hear East London slang that’s not cockney, they don’t really understand it, that our slang is maybe a patois of other cultures and other languages. With the artistry, I just feel like there’s a lot of commercialism here and like, how do you know me as an artist? How do I bring my raw London ideas but still make it understandable to the audience here without losing who I am, without losing me?

RH: I think you're like me. City girls, right? I love New York like I love London. It’s the vibe of a city. For you, in terms of inspiration to write a play which is focused on New York, did you come to that with the lens of someone who’s living there permanently now, or with more of an outsider’s lens?

HI: When I was at drama school at Central, I had international students in my class. They would say things about how hard it was, and being British-born, having a passport, I would completely disregard it. Now, coming to America, I realize what their hardship was. This play is a modern-day immigration story. Four years in, there’s so many rules I still don’t understand. I still don’t understand how I’m here! I feel really lucky, but at the same time, the way I disregarded the hardship for those individuals back at Central, people here disregarded my hardship. To be brutally honest, there were moments I was going through so much hardship with housing that I slept in the NYU library, which is open 24 hours. There are things you cannot speak about as an international student because people will tell you to go home. But I came here to make a change. I came here to better myself. I came here to make money. I came here to make my art. I came here to create a new family. I came here to create freedom and love and life. And that’s what Beige in America started with.

RH: Let’s talk about the title. In the extract that you sent me, there is a bit where your character talks about being brown, and wearing that crown of being brown, and talking about fellow brown girls, and someone interrupts and says, “Brown? Brown?” and then laughs. And they say, “Don’t you mean beige, bitch?” Do you want to talk a little bit about the idea of ‘beige’ and what it means? It’s “Beige in America”—if you were in the UK, is it still beige?

HI: People have said the word “beige” to me in the UK, but it’s about what Beige has turned into here. The UK’s diversity is very different from America’s diversity. Even being South Asian, the South Asian community [in the US] is actually very different from the South Asian community in the UK. It’s about placement and location and it’s just different. But something I got a lot here is, “You are not Indian.” And I think that’s really bold words to tell someone.

RH: Who do you find generally says that to you? People who are from similar backgrounds?

HI: People who are South Asian. But we have to remember this: the beauty of any country is that we come in different shades. In our families, we are a spectrum of colors, and we are beautiful no matter what. Being Indian, from two Indian parents, and then going through sort of biracial complexes, it just really sometimes confuses me. I went to Jersey recently because they had this specific Gujarati dish that I just really wanted—and you don’t get anywhere in New York so I had to go to Jersey—and I get treated like, other. Last Ramadan I asked someone, could I come and break my fast somewhere in Jackson Heights, and I got shouted at and told no, so I went to Kebab King next door!

RH: Why do you think they shouted at you?

HI: I think they only want a specific South Asian to sit in their restaurant. I’ve seen that many times in that specific restaurant. They make amazing pastries, that’s the thing that I can’t stop going there! Or my eyebrow ladies—oh my god, my eyebrow ladies make a huge thing about “No, no, you’re Spanish.” I think the confusion is coming from a lot of my own community.

RH: As you expand the play, are these the things that you’re going to look at? Is it fundamentally about acceptance of self?

HI: Yeah, I think it truly is. I think this play is about acceptance. It’s been the hardest play I’ve ever written. Because, as much of me as there is in Beige, Beige is not me; the play is not real. And it’s extremely ADHD, and that’s what I love, because that’s who I am. But at the same time, we’re going into this play to understand the self, but I might not understand myself until I am a very old lady. I might not understand who I truly am until then. But it’s getting it down. Yesterday was such a great writing day. I found great pictures of a makeup campaign for Kylie Jenner, and someone took these campaign pictures and they made it into, like, the Arab “Fair and Lovely” advertisement. I started laughing so hard—because I remembered that—and I thought, oh, this just has got to go into the play!

RH: We all remember the “Fair and Lovely” campaigns. And you have people saying, “Well, you’re not brown, you’re beige.” Do you think that’s coming from ideas of identity related to colorism, and of trying to be white adjacent? Is that something you want to explore in the play?

HI: Beige is going through all these new experiences. She’s no longer being cradled by her little Muslim family. She’s in a new cultural setting. How does she adapt to that cultural setting? That might be people who allow you to wear shoes in the house. Her parents don’t allow that. What is that for Beige? The simplest things, learning new cultures, new foods, how that affects Beige, how she takes that. And I think the play is going to get darker. My themes as a writer have always been women and violence. And I don’t know what that violence is yet. But right now, everything's going into understanding who this woman is, and to see all the great and the sad things that can come out of it. Something you taught me that inspired me, and that I consistently remember—you’ve been frustrated that so many South Asian roles are so two dimensional. Do you remember saying that to me? It’s never got out of my mind.

RH: It hasn’t changed that much, has it?

HI: No. But, for example, the Public is doing such amazing work. We have such a great team. Amrita [Ramanan] being part of the team is, like, part of the South Asian movement. I was telling her how I felt by the American South Asian community, and she took me to a South Asian women’s event, and I felt so loved into my culture. To have that person on my team, that is just really lucky, because we don’t have that in [literary] offices the majority of the time. Here, I’ve been finding it really difficult to find a South Asian Muslim director, which is something I really want, something I feel really connected to having.

RH: Do you feel like it’s different in the TV/film space in America, compared to theater?

HI: Yeah, but it also, again, it depends who’s writing it. I want to write the stereotype you want. I want you to laugh your head off. People want me in a 7-Eleven outfit? I will put myself in a 7-Eleven outfit. But I will also call you out on it, because I find it funny.

RH: You’ve got that British side of you, the British humor that comes into it.

HI: Yes, I want to grab those stereotypes, and then I want to pull them away from you. That, to me, is fun.

You know, Queens is the world’s diversity melting pot, but it’s extremely segregated. I always have to tell people that each area is extremely segregated. But you go to 74th, Jackson Heights, the Bengali community—which I think is currently becoming the biggest community in America among the South Asians—my god, the hard work, the way they work together as a family, it’s so beautiful to see. And it’s the same, for example, in South American and Central American areas, like the Ecuadorian community. Oh, they’re so hardworking. Those women, those candy ladies on the train, my god, they’re getting up every day and walking carriage to carriage for you to buy a $2 chocolate when it’s really $5 in the store, for you to help their life because they want to just make a living and a change in this country. Also little things that people don’t know, like that undocumented immigrants still pay taxes. People don’t know that! We all are ignorant in our lives, we have ignorant moments, and how we get through these ignorant moments is education. But instead of fighting—because I’m an aggressive South Asian woman, we all know that I can scream for days, I’m a loud mouth—but at the same time, me screaming at someone, going, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, it’s just not going to work. So instead of forcing someone to be educated, I’ve just decided to just give information if I have to. Because I’m also learning, I'm in a new community [with my in-laws]. Currently, I’m learning about differences between being Central American, South American, and being in that community—it’s so vibrant and beautiful. I’m learning, and that’s also shaping me, and maybe shaping Beige as well.

RH: What do you think the role of theater is in changing perspectives?

HI: It’s extremely important. Currently in the world climate, we are always on our phones. We don’t want to talk to people. People no longer sit at the bus stop and go, “Oh, hello, how are you?” When José, my fiance, does this—he’s a chatterbox—people look at him like he’s mad. And he does that because he still wants communication with people, and people don’t understand that. And in theater, we, your actors, are allowed to do that. I don’t want to be on stage acting like it’s a therapy session. I really hope to have my audience see a new side to a person, to learn something they didn’t know. I guess success for a writer is your audience member leaving with at least one piece of information that they learn. Like, if they learn one little thing, and they go home and do their research on that. For example, we all know the sad story of Grenfell, and recently, I got to see the Grenfell verbatim play here in New York.

RH: Yeah, I saw it in London a few years ago as well.

HI: It hit the heart. We know the story, we did our research into the many people who lost their lives, their families. But something I took away from that play was the cladding information and the construction information, it being an American company. I took away more than that, I cried at the end of the play—but to me, I felt I had learned something vital about what cost those people their lives. And yeah, that’s it, to me: what piece of information are we going to leave this auditorium with?

RH: Where we are at the moment, we can’t always rely on our mainstream media to find out certain truths. So many things are distorted, or sometimes not even told to us. The space for theater to bring truth that’s not at the forefront to the surface—“Here, you may know a little bit about this, I’m going to tell you even more”—and then to attach a real heartfelt human story—there’s a real impact.

HI: It’s so important for us to have that live moment to feel a whole arc as well. Your audience will go on a journey with you. That’s why it’s so thrilling for the actor and the writer and the audience member, because you are being taken on a journey. The actor performing it is there on stage because they love taking you on that journey. It’s just so important. And you get to take the journey and to hopefully learn something.

There was a great one-person show at the Public recently that was about climate change, and the way they took us in and out of things, but also gave us the core information. People don’t want to listen to stories about climate change, they won't acknowledge it. But [David Finnigan] did it in such a magnificent way. Made me go into the subway and get out my iPad and research a few things. I really hope people do that with Beige in America. I really hope people take those little bits and those little seeds, to go, “Oh, let me now go and do my bit.” Because as artists, we can only do as much as we can. It takes the person coming to watch to do the rest.

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Humaira Iqbal is a British Indian Muslim, writer-poet-actor based in N.Y.C, born and raised in East London/Essex, U.K. Iqbal’s key inspirational themes are women and violence, but community and history are at the core of her work, striving always to tell the unknown story. Iqbal is a recent MFA graduate from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the Dramatic Writing department. Iqbal has also had the honor to train as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama’s BA (Hons) Acting program and has now been in the professional business for just over four years. Iqbal was the 2022 recipient of The BAFTA Pigott award and has had the privilege to be part of two in-demand writing groups in the UK; SOHO Writers Lab and the Royal Court Writers' Group. Some of Iqbal’s previous acting work includes working with the BBC, Arcola Theatre (Spun), Royal Court, Royal Stratford East (Director: Nadia Fall), and debuting the short film Didi at HollyShorts (USA). Follow Iqbal on Instagram @humi.iqbal to get all current creative updates.

Rabiah Hussain is a writer for screen and stage. Rabiah was a writer for the prestigious Kudos TV and Royal Court Theatre Fellowship Programme in 2019, following which, she wrote for the Royal Court’s One Night Stand series, their Living Newspaper online filmed content, and was commissioned by the Royal Court to write WORD-PLAY, which premiered in July 2023. WORD-PLAY is currently under option and being developed for TV. Rabiah was selected for the BBC TV Drama Writers’ Programme in 2020. She was in the writer’s room for Riz Ahmed’s ENGLISTAN, and completed a shadow scheme with The Forge for ACKLEY BRIDGE. In 2018, Rabiah was part of the BBC Drama Room programme and is an alumnus of the B3 Media Talent Lab for upcoming BAME filmmakers. Rabiah’s debut full-length play, SPUN, premiered at Arcola Theatre in July 2018, receiving 4-star reviews in The Guardian and The Stage, and was nominated for Best Stage Production at the Asian Media Awards. SPUN toured Canada in 2019, and won the German Youth Theatre Prize and the Youth Theatre Prize of Baden-Württemberg in 2020, with a run at Theater Heilbronn in 2023. Rabiah co-wrote WE ARE SHADOWS, an audio drama tour of Brick Lane for Tamasha Theatre in 2020. Her other plays include WHERE I LIVE AND WHAT I LIVE For written for Theatre Absolute in 2017. Rabiah was the copywriter for the 2019 LEVI’s Music Project campaign video, YOUR VOICE. YOUR WAY and wrote a short film called VAPOUR in 2018 for Various Instances Production.