Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj is an Indo-Afro-Caribbean multidisciplinary artist and scholar who’s been twice hailed as a Critics’ Pick by The New York Times. His playwriting residencies include New Harmony Project, The Orchard Project, Alliance Theatre, and Arkansas Rep. He is a finalist for both the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Drinking Gourd Playwrights Cohort by True Colors, and is an alumnus of the ArtEquity BIPOC Leadership Circle at Yale University. Maharaj was the original co-book writer and dramaturg for The Factotum at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He serves on the Board of Directors for National Queer Theatre and is a member of the Geva Theatre Community Engagement Committee. In 2026, he will return to Broadway as the Associate Director of the highly anticipated revival of Dreamgirls.
Maharaj has been honored with the prestigious Woodie King Jr. Award, four AUDELCO Awards, the Barrymore, NYC International Fringe Award, as well as TCG Directing and Playwriting Grants. He is also the recipient of the N.A.M.T. Musical Theatre Award, is a two-time finalist for the Blue Ink Playwriting Award, and a semifinalist for the Austin Film Festival, Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship, and the 2026 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. He was the recent recipient of the 2025-2026 Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Award presented by the SUNY Geneseo President's Commission on Diversity and Community and the 2025-2026 robbie routenberg Faculty/Staff Leadership Award presented by the SUNY Geneseo Office of Diversity and Equity.
At MacDowell, Maharaj worked on his new play, sweet lorraine, an ode to two literary titans—Lorraine Vivian Hansberry and James Arthur Baldwin—and to the rare intimacy of a friendship that allowed them to be more fully themselves with one another than with anyone else in their lives. He also worked on the libretto for a new American Hip-Hop musical, How The Story Go.
