Jashnebachpan: She Stood Up

She Stood Up
Writer & Director: Zubin Mehta
Group: Wings Theatre Academy & Vivek High School, Chandigarh
Language: English, Hindi & Punjabi
Duration: 1 hr 25 mins

About the Group
Wings Theatre Academy was established in 2012. The aim of the academy was to give a platform to the students in and around Chandigarh, whereby they could hone their skills, grow as individuals, and work constantly to grow the faculties of their mind, while simultaneously opening up the world of theatre to a city still in the process of finding its pulse. The academy is currently 150 students strong, all of whom are in the age group of 7 to 30 yrs. The academy has staged over 20 annual plays in the last six years.

About the Play
She Stood Up, directed by Zubin Mehta, focuses on different aspects of school life. The story is about two girls who despite having different personalities and backgrounds come together, become good friends, and take little steps of courage to change people’s perspectives. They empower girls through a soccer match. It is a very simple, realistic and relatable story which comes with a strong message of motivation and courage to stand up for what is right, and of breaking gender stereotypes from an early age. While highlighting the above, it has light, innocent and humorous moments for the audience to enjoy. This play was devised with a lot of inputs and ideas from the young actors who come from various schools in and around Chandigarh. The cast of the play comprises entirely of children between the ages of 8 and 11 years, who have been training with Wings Theatre Academy at Vivek High School, over the last few years.

Director
Zubin Mehta, started his theatre journey at the age of 8 as a child artist. He travelled extensively to the interiors of Punjab to perform plays based on socially relevant topics, using theatre as a medium of social reform. In 2004 at the age of nineteen, Zubin was appointed as a theatre teacher by Yadavindra Public School, Mohali to establish a dramatics society which later became a part of the curriculum. During his tenure, he directed school productions, worked with children of various age groups and developed content for theatre workshops. In 2012, he founded Wings Theatre Academy. He has worked with more than 3000 actors – children, adolescents and young adults.

Director’s Note
The movement of Woman Empowerment has been gaining momentum in our country in the last decade, but we are still dealing with the horrors of Nirbhaya and Kathua. The real empowerment should happen at a young age. It is the young girls that we need to empower to make a significant difference. She Stood Up was devised with 45 students from 6 years to 12 years of age, studying in different schools of Chandigarh. We started the rehearsals with the wish to do something for young girls, but what and how, we had no idea. I sat with my young cast for the first few days and just explored the idea with them. I tried to gauge what was it that they wanted to share on the subject, what empowerment meant to these young children. Brainstorming happened for the next few days and we had the outline of our story with us. It was a simple story of a young girl fighting with the school authorities for something that she thought was her right.

Cast & Credits
On Stage
Chamanlal                      Eklavya Mogla
Satish                             Aditya Goyal
Saurabh                          Anhad Mogla
Sandhu Sir                      Kanwardeep Singh
Pranay’s father                Kevinpratap Singh Sidhu
Ravi Bhaiya                     Aarav Joshi
Lata                                 Kashish Aggarwal
Pooja                               Ridhi Ahluwalia
Promila                            Navika Singh
Ria                                   Saira Mamik
Birso                                 Paakhii
Principal                           Hiral Thakur
Mrs Subramaniam           Aahana Gupta
Mrs Chaddha                   Simer Suri
Miss Negi                        Kashish Dhingra
Mrs Misra                        Dia Lekhi
Mrs Shergill                     Rabbani Lehal
School Nurse                   Ishrat
Sunny Singh                    Abhaydeep Singh
Aakash                            Angad Singh Tur
Gurfateh                          Inderpal Singh
Pinky Singh                     Pranit Singh
Umang Shankar              Adhiraj Sehgal
Pranay                            Dev Pannu
Raghav Jain                   Samay
Param                            Sumeir Ahluwalia
Seerat                            Saanvi Kanwar
Pallavi                            Mishika Singh
Kaveri                            Aanvi Bahri
Mili Mittal                       Sohaya Aulakh
Pavni Chaddha             Aaina Chaddha
Jhanvi Goyal                 Mannat Verma
Priya Chauhan              Inayat Dhingra
Mrs Verma                    Kashvi Wadhwa
School children            Sidak Singh Talwar, Navya Singhal, Vaanya Pathak,
Rehmat Sandhu, Brinda Thamman, Meher Kumar, Sarah Setia,
Nikasha Luthra

Off Stage
Assistant Director                  Namita Chandhoke
Overall Coordination              Amrita Patti & Dashveen Kaur
Light Design & Execution      Zubin Mehta
Set Design                             Zubin Mehta
Background Music                 Manav Bhinder
Costumes                              Amrita Patti, Dashveen Kaur
Make-up                                Balaji
Backstage Assistance          Puneet
Produced by                         Wings Theatre Academy, Vivek High School, Chandigarh

Playwright,
Design & Direction               Zubin Mehta

Contacts
Wings Theatre Academy, Vivek High
Sector 38-B, Chandigarh- 160036
M: +919888577481; +918288040900
E: wingstheatreacademy@gmail.com