Borrowing from the Theatre Classroom: Thriving in an Arts Organization
“I don’t really know what I’m doing..” James quipped and I enthusiastically echoed the statement, both of us bursting into laughter. A few weeks after I moved to Boston to begin teaching at Emerson College, I received a phone call from my teacher-friend from grad school James Peck. Even though there was plenty to catch […]
The Serious Art of Puppetry: In Conversation with Anurupa Roy
Editor’s Note: India has a rich history in theatre, but our knowledge about the work our contemporaries and older groups have and are doing, is often limited to the geographies we live in. Driven by a curiosity to know about the work being created across the country, over the next couple of months, we will […]
Discovering Mythologies and Traditional Forms through Nimmy Raphel and V Balakrishnan
I waited anxiously, having just refreshed my distant memories of watching Mahabharata on TV on Sunday mornings as a child and being forced to listen to stories of myth and folklore by my grandmother. I rapidly read through an online abridged Britannica essay on the epics in a last-minute attempt to prevent myself from saying […]
23 in 2023: A peek into what keeps the DSM alums ticking this New Year
While we are all trying to make sense of the past few years, yet another year is upon us! One-half of the internet is busy sharing memes about still processing 2020 while the other half has started with their year-end posts, holiday plans and all that’s to come next. With murmurs of another deadly variant […]
Careers@Drama School Mumbai
Building the New Generation of Theatre-makers… Requires a Development Officer and Course Advisor unlike any other. The past year has given us a chance to renew our commitment to the acting and theatre-making community by finding new, more resilient ways to train using digital mediums. The range and reach of our activities have expanded. […]
Understanding Originality
So, I googled it. I googled the word ‘original’ (and got distracted by several ads) and emerged with some interesting results and dual meanings. ‘Original’ can mean that which is entirely new, freshly burst into existence. Conversely, it means root – authentic source material from which fakes, copies and imitations can arise. So, between these […]
My Impressions of Keval Arora: Theatre Pedagogue, Mentor and Man
Editor’s Note: India has a rich history in theatre, but our knowledge about the work our contemporaries and older groups have and are doing, is often limited to the geographies we live in. Driven by a curiosity to know about the work being created across the country, over the next couple of months, we will […]
Marrying Theatre & Tech: Ayesha Susan Thomas, Chanakya Vyas & Ben Samuels on Embracing Technology to Tell Stories
On an average, we humans spend 11 hours a day consuming technology. Technology includes – watching video, listening to audio, working on the computer, engaging with social media, video gaming, or online reading. For us, living in the 21st century, the digital space is one that we’ve come to naturally inhabit, so much so it […]
Unrehearsed Futures (S3) #13 A Lush and Generative Longing: Presence and Resistance on the Threshold
Do you believe Creation desires your devotion Through murder and death We squabble over The pieces of the earth The true beasts are Those who believe in creation Without mother, womb or birth Be simple like the flowers – Lyrics from Me’shell Ndegeocello’s album Comfort Woman Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Kate Quarfordt’s wish is to […]
Sandbox Collective co-founders Shiva Pathak, Nimi Ravindran on ‘Gender Bender’, building a community and more
Editor’s Note: India has a rich history in theatre, but our knowledge about the work our contemporaries and older groups have and are doing, is often limited to urban centres or the geographies we live in. Driven by a curiosity to know about the work being created across the country, over the next couple of […]
Entrepreneurship in Theatre: Young theatre-makers share how they run a theatre company
For young theatre-makers who are starting out in the field wanting to create their own work and theatre companies, a question that stumps them is: How does one start a theatre company with no money? In an ecosystem that is starving for financial injections, it becomes a task for young theatre-makers to find their way […]
Unrehearsed Futures (S3) #12 Unstable Classrooms: Re-learning practice through pedagogy
As we encounter a world that is perpetually in a state of constant disruption, the question arises that if we were to embrace this feeling of being in a constant flux, where is the moment of creativity, where is the generative capacity. At a recent Unrehearsed Futures (Season 3) conversation, Delhi-based playwright and director, Neel […]
‘I am a Chhara, Not a Criminal’: Budhan Theatre member Atish Indrekar on using theatre for social justice
Editor’s Note: India has a rich history in theatre, but our knowledge about the work our contemporaries and older groups have and are doing, is often limited to urban centres or the geographies we live in. Driven by a curiosity to know about the work being created across the country, over the next couple of […]
Unrehearsed Futures (S3) #11 The Burdens of Witness: writing (by) women in times of crisis
In our first conversation following the mid-season break of Unrehearsed Futures (Season 3), we dove into the chaosmos of writing stories centred around female protagonists and the complicated positioning of women in scenarios of social upheaval and crisis, with US-based ethnographer, storyteller and educator Nikki Yeboah and screenwriter Sarah McCarron. Whether negotiating intimate family dramas […]
Ahead of India’s 75th Independence Day, theatre artists share practices they seek freedom from
India will complete 75 years of Independence this month. Freedom (or Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, as the Government of India calls it) is the word on the street everywhere you go. We wondered, Iin these times, what does the concept of freedom mean to artists and theatre practitioners. To find out, we interviewed some practitioners to […]
Curated Conversations: Nisha Abdulla, Rumi Harish, Krupa on the non-definitions of the body
What is the body? How does the body engage with other bodies to form a community of bodies? What is the body’s first memory of artmaking? How does it connect to wellness, to health? In this edition of Curated Conversations, we had three panellists – Nisha Abdulla, Rumi Harish and Krupa – who spoke about […]