Kaizaad Kotwal

Kaizaad Kotwal is an Indian producer, director, actor, writer and designer. He has worked on over 200 theatre and film productions, including the Indian production of the Vagina Monologues. He won an Emmy Award for Art Direction in 1996.

Life and career
Kaizaad Kotwal was the first person to graduate with a triple major Bachelor's degree from Wabash College in Indiana, USA. He also studied at Ohio State University where he received a Master's degree in feminist and post-colonial literature, as well as a doctorate in new media and technology in art, film, and theatre.

Kotwal is currently a professor of theatre, media studies and film at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He won the Griffin Society Award for Best Professor in 2008 and in 2007 was named one of the top professors in Ohio.

Activism
He co-owns a production company called Poor-Box Productions with his mother and co-director Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal. The company started in Ohio in 1996 and the Indian one was started in 1999 when they launched their production of Shirley Valentine. Through this company, they began a long-running production of The Vagina Monologues in India, which debuted at the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai in 2003. They have translated the play into Hindi and Gujarati. It has been performed consistently since then by actors like Dolly Thakore and Mona Ambegaonkar. Together, Kotwal and Mody-Kotwal founded the Make-A-Difference Foundation in 2008 to advocate for women's empowerment.

In 2014, he participated in the second annual Women of India Leadership Summit in New Delhi alongside other artists and women's rights activists.

In December 2018, Kotwal held a TED talk entitled "Art and the Accidental Activist."

In 2019, Kotwal and Mody-Kotwal were awarded the Karmaveer Puruskar Mahartna award for their activism for women's rights.

Awards and nominations

 * 2012 - Karmaveer Chakra Award
 * 2014- Verghese Kurian Karmaveer Puraskar
 * 2019 - Karmaveer Puruskar Maharatna Award
 * 2020- 2020 National Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity