Guards at the Taj

Written by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Mekala Sridhar
Mar 26-Apr 19, 2026

At what point do you follow morals over orders? This darkly comic play explores how unexamined adherence to leadership can drive you to stifle what makes you most human. Set in a fictionalized 1648 India, two Imperial Guards watch from their post as the sun rises on the newly-completed Taj Mahal for the first time—an event that shakes their respective worlds. When they are ordered to perform an unthinkable task, the aftermath forces them to question their very ideas of beauty, loyalty, and even their own friendship. A wry and haunting examination of blind obedience.

Meet the Artists

  • Rajiv Joseph

    PLAYWRIGHT

    Rajiv Joseph is an American playwright and screenwriter known for his thought-provoking and emotionally charged works. His play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and marked his Broadway debut. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 for Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then, in 2018, for Describe the Night. Other plays include Dakar 2000, King James, Letters of Suresh, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The North Pool, The Lake Effect, Archduke and Mr. Wolf. Rajiv has been a Steppenwolf Theater Ensemble member since 2018. Rajiv is a graduate of Cleveland Heights High School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and his MFA from New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa.

  • Mekala Sridhar

    DIRECTOR

    Mekala Sridhar is a DC based theatre director, playwright, and producer. Her directing credits include Nothing You Desire (workshop) at Atlas Arts Lab, A Wake At Singh's (workshop) at Prologue Theatre, Frederick Douglass Project (reading) Hakawatis (reading) at Solas Nua, Salome and 10708 at Sarah Lawrence College and (re)Move West at Accademia Dell'Arte. Select associate directing credits include Public Obscenities at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Theatre For A New Audience, Metamorphoses and Twelfth Night at Folger Theatre.

    Mekala’s artmaking is grounded in creating radically inclusive, collaborative work, with a central focus on transforming the institutions she engages with into more equitable, community-centered spaces.

    Mekala holds a BA in Theatre, Literature, and Psychology from Sarah Lawrence College and received additional training from Moscow Art Theatre School and Accademia dell’Arte. www.mekalasridhar.com