Therapist through the day, and stand-up comedian by the evening, Shruti makes a living by making people laugh out loud and cry it all out. Trained in drama and movement therapy, from the world’s Ftop drama school: The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, UK, Shruti combines the depth of her training in mental health with the playfulness of stand-up comedy in all her offerings. Using comedy as a tool to create a space for queer stories to breathe in India, she founded QueerProv, which is an improv theatre space for all queer and women identifying individuals. Emboldened by her empathy and wit, she adapts her content to the audience’s sensibilities and, as a queer mental health professional, brings a fresh perspective to both the Indian comedy scene and mental health field. In the year 2024 Shruti’s comedy received major recognition as she was listed in India’s top 10 upcoming comics by a leading stand up comedy magazine, Deadant.
As a drama-therapist, they specialise in working with queer/trans individuals and training healthcare professionals to be queer affirmative through uniquely designed embodied-experiential-play based workshops. Shruti has a particular interest in mythopoetic approaches to trauma and has contributed a chapter ‘The Harmless Ghost: A Mythopoetic Approach to Trauma’ for the book ‘Trauma and Embodied Healing in Dramatherapy: Theory, Practice and Research’ published by Routledge, UK.