We lose our pillars according to the ways of time, but the passing of Zarin Chaudhuri leaves a huge void in Kolkata theatre that no one person can fill alone, for she was sui generis. In her lithe frame she held the mind of an organizer, teacher and scripter, the
Theatre House (Santiniketan) presents a three-month residential training programme from 1 December to 28 February. This annual event mentored by Alessandro Anil deals with the body, voice and mind of the actor using meditative techniques, physical training and vocal training, culminating in a public production. This unique pedagogy blends Eastern
The 25th Rang Adda on 28 July 2024 will discuss Jagdish Chandra Mathur, Badal Sircar, Narendra Mohan, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Tripurari Sharma, M.K. Raina, Asghar Wajahat and Rajesh Joshi, with workshops led by personalities from Hindi, Urdu and Bengali theatre. Venue: Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Time: 10 AM to 7 PM
Sessions to be conducted on June 8 and 9 by Debshankar Haldar, Biplab Bandyopadhyay, Pradip Bhattacharya and Surajit Bandopadhyay.
From May 7th to 16th, Sayak will hold a festival of ten Bengali plays every evening at 6:30 in Tapan Theatre. Selected by senior dramatist-director Debasis Majumdar, these include productions from Ranchi and Agartala, besides Kolkata and its suburbs. Details announced separately in our Events column.
An article that appears on sohinichattopadhyay.com, appealing for a new initiative: Trauma Doesn’t Have a Formula by Shuktara Lal Last year, I had the honour of being invited to direct a performance comprising students at the Asian University for Women (Chattogram/Chittagong). The eight actors who performed were from several different
The West Bengal Government has organized a gala eleven-day Natyamela of Bengali theatre starting on February 3 lasting till February 13, with free admission for everyone. Every afternoon and evening, over 100 groups from all over the state will stage their productions at the state-run auditoriums in Kolkata: Rabindra Sadan,
Another of Bengali theatre’s leading groups, Sayak, still led by founder Meghnad Bhattacharya, has reached its 50th anniversary, marked with a festival of seven plays at the Academy of Fine Arts from 29 November to 3 December. Details in our Events column.
Applications for the META 2024 awards are open. Contact www.metawards.com
Little Thespian holds their 12th National Theatre Festival, Jashn-e-Azhar, from March 18 to 23. It has become Kolkata’s only truly national festival now, by virtue of the fact that they invite more groups from outside the city than from inside to participate. This year, productions come from Jabalpur, Delhi, Gwalior
On 7 December 1872, the Bengali public (as opposed to amateur private) stage was born, when a theatre-mad group of young men in north Calcutta enacted Dinabandhu Mitra’s classic political protest drama, Nil-darpan, in a temporary hall without wings in the courtyard outhouse of Madhusudan Sanyal’s mansion (later famous as
My translation of Utpal Dutt’s political masterpiece, Barricade, has just appeared from Seagull Books: https://www.seagullbooks.org/barricade/#features Read my short article about it in The Hindu, a conversation on it with Ramu Ramanathan at scroll.in, a discussion and readings at Victoria Memorial on YouTube, a feature on it in The Telegraph, and
