Q&A with Ajay Chowdhury

A stray dog, a newly divorced woman and a carefully planned new life thrown completely off course: Dog Mom is the new offbeat comedy about the unexpected ways we find connection and community coming to London after successful runs across the USA. For director Ajay Chowdhury, the UK premiere marks a return to directing after more than a decade away. He speaks to us about what drew him to Dog Mom, bringing an Indian-American identity to the London production, finding the balance between comedy and vulnerability – and the challenge of putting dogs on stage when they’re played entirely by humans. Dog Mom runs at Southwark Playhouse Borough from 14 October to 7 November 2026.

What was it about Dog Mom that made you want to direct the UK premiere?

It made me laugh and then caught me off guard with how moving it was. Vinita Belani, who founded EnActe Arts and plays Sarita, sent me the script. I’d been away from directing for more than a decade, and this was the play that made me want to come back. Tate has written these outrageous dogs who philosophise, analyse their owners and say things the humans would never dare to say. But you quickly find yourself caring about the woman at the centre of it all. That movement between comedy and vulnerability really appealed to me. The opportunity to explore Sarita as an Indian-American woman in her fifties made it especially interesting. There was something I felt I could bring to it, and a group of people I very much wanted to make it with.

Sarita is a recently divorced middle-aged woman navigating some big questions around family, identity and what fulfilment looks like. What do you hope audiences take away from her story?

I hope they feel that there’s still room for life to surprise them. Sarita thinks she knows what her new life should look like, and has quite reasonably decided she doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone else. Then this dog arrives and makes the whole plan impossible. I’m interested in the difference between independence and feeling that you must never need anyone. Sarita’s friendship with Nell becomes just as important as her relationship with the dog. She begins to find a community she hadn’t known she was looking for. There’s an assumption that by your fifties you should have yourself more or less sorted out. I’m in my sixties and still waiting. I hope people laugh, perhaps shed a tear, and leave a little more open to the people around them.

In Dog Mom, the dogs are played by human actors. What does that bring to the story, and what can those relationships reveal about the human characters that another person perhaps couldn’t?

It lets us see the dogs as characters with their own needs and opinions. Patty Gallagher, who plays Foster, and Tom Barnes, who plays Ruben, can give us the thought behind the behaviour. A sudden shift of attention or an entirely unembarrassed demand for affection can be enough for us to recognise the dog.

What’s useful about the relationship is that Sarita can’t negotiate it entirely on her own terms. A dog doesn’t politely accept that you’re busy maintaining your emotional defences. It needs something from you, and it offers affection with a directness that another person might find impossible.

That can expose the gap between what Sarita says she wants and what she actually feels. The actors have to take those attachments seriously. Once the audience cares about the relationship, the comedy has somewhere to go when the mood changes.

Sarita’s South Asian identity is an important part of the story. What did you want to bring to that element of the production for its UK premiere?

Sarita is Indian-American and the story remains in Brooklyn. Vinita and I bring our own South Asian perspectives to her experience, rather than relocating it to Britain. Making her an Indian-American woman in her fifties changes the questions we ask. What has she been expected to do within a marriage? What does she feel she owes her family? How difficult is it to admit that the life she built hasn’t worked out? Tate, Vinita and I explored those questions together. The textual changes were surprisingly small. Much of the work happens through character and performance. It matters to me that Sarita can be stubborn, contradictory and occasionally unreasonable. Nobody should have to represent an entire community while also dealing with a dog.

The play deals with some substantial themes, but there’s also a lot of humour in it. How have you approached that balance?

By keeping track of what each encounter does to Sarita. The dog’s energy is funny partly because it collides with her desire for order. If we lose sight of what that disruption costs her, we lose some of the comedy as well as the emotional story. Tate has written the shifts beautifully, and a good deal of the job is trusting them. We need to give the quieter moments as much attention as the big laughs. At Southwark Playhouse, a small look or a pause can register without anyone having to announce a feeling. The same is true of the dogs. If they’re only a collection of funny mannerisms, the joke will wear thin. If we understand what they want and why it matters, we can laugh at them and still be moved by them.

What has surprised you most about Dog Mom during the rehearsal process for the London production?

All rehearsals bring surprises. You arrive with an idea of how something might work, and then an actor does something you hadn’t imagined. We have a great cast, including two people with clown training, Patty and Joey, and their physical humour has really brought the play to life.

That’s one of the pleasures of directing: leaving room for what the actors bring. With this play, so much depends on behaviour and timing, and on the audience recognising something without our having to explain it. It’s been a delight to see what they can do with that.

Where can people find out more about EnActe’s work and upcoming productions?

The best place to start is EnActe’s website, www.enacte.org. The Happening Now section has details of productions and events, and you can also explore its theatre and education work. For this production, there’s more at the Southwark Playhouse website https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/dog-mom/. I hope people will come along, whether or not they have a dog. Though anyone who does may look at theirs a little differently afterwards.

Dog Mom makes its UK premiere at Southwark Playhouse Borough on Wednesday 14 October to Saturday 7 November 2026. For more information visit: southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/dog-mom/