10th July 2019 Activities: For today's class, we were joined by Abhishek Majumdar, founder of Indian Ensemble and artistic director of the Bhasha Centre, for a session on narrative and form. We began the day with the questions: when does a Yakshagana play stop being a Yakshagana play? What is the essence of a form … Continue reading Day 7 →

12th July 2019 Activities: Today's session was dedicated entirely to a workshop on Saudamini's play, which explores masculinity in India through an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club and Uday Prakash's Paul Gomra ka Scooter. We began by reading a few scenes from the play and immediately after, jumped into improvising stagings of those scenes. … Continue reading Day 8 →

13th July 2019 Activities: Today, we were joined by Amitesh Grover for a session on theatrical form. Amitesh is a performance-based artist in New Delhi, India and his practice explores intimate performance. We began the day by discussing the difficult nature of adapting Shrilal Shukla's novel, Raag Darbari, for the stage. Amitesh described the journey … Continue reading Day 9 →

14th July 2019 Activities: We spent the day workshopping Ankit's play, which follows the lives of two brothers in Bundelkhand and is set against mounting religious fervour and a growing obsession with the cow. Like with our workshop on Saudamini's play, we began by reading a few scenes from the play. Then, Ankit walked us … Continue reading Day 10 →

16th and 17th July 2019 Activities: We spent two days with Anitha Santhanam, who is a seasoned actor, dancer, and director. She has trained in physical theatre based on Lecoq's pedagogy and in Bharatanatyam, Yoga, and Kalaripayattu as well. Over our two sessions with Ms. Santhanam, we explored the practice of embodied writing. On the … Continue reading Days 11 and 12 →

20th July 2019 1. Today, we were joined by Sunil Shanbag for a session on the use of music in theatre. Sunil Shanbag is a Bombay based theatre director, screenwriter and documentary film-maker. He is well known for his innovative use of music and dance in his performances. We began the day by watching clips … Continue reading Day 13 →

21st July 2019 1. Today was a continuation of the workshop with Sunil Shanbag. We began the day with a discussion of the various questions and thoughts provoked by the previous day’s class. A question raised was how one can escape the clichés when using music. Sunil answered this by stating that intent is key … Continue reading Day 14 →

24th July 2019 Activities: Today's session was dedicated to studying dialogue and thinking deeply about what dialogue does, and what good dialogue looks like. We began the day by discussing dialogue's role in theatre, and noted that dialogue facilitates the progression of story, the revelation of information, sets the context and the rhythm of the … Continue reading Day 16 →

26th and 27th July 2019 We spent both days at the Sandbox Collective's office on Millers Road, where we dedicated the hours of 9 AM to 6 PM to writing. The goal for these two days was to push ourselves to produce as many pages as we could, whilst reflecting on and drawing from this … Continue reading Day 17 and 18: A Writing Marathon →