Samik Bindu’s STORY OF LORI Director: Mayukh Dutta

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Playwright: Samik Bindu
Director: Mayukh Dutta
Group: Chetla Krishti Sansad, Kolkata
Language: Bengali
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins

The Play
The play opens with two cats ushering in a retro-future backdrop. Three notorious business tycoons monopolize the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ through diplomatic support of the greedy state-minister, by luring the Master Chef King, an indifferent, careless food aficionado. ‘Nerdy’, a pseudo-human-robot designs surveillance gadgets to track hapless commoners, daring their basic rights of singing lullabies and cooking food, which have now become red-listed. Public life is jeopardized with hungry, sleepless children and a helplessking in self-proclaimed exile. Ultimately the cats come to rescue by finding a special little girl. Together, they find the king and make him cook a unique recipe with powers to instil humane sanity in ‘Nerdy’ by deleting his robot-mode.

Director’s Note
The story is set in a fairy-tale-like background. The play symbolically depicts how crony capitalism is denying the basic rights of the people via monopolizing the natural resources of a country. The greedy corporates use state-of the-art technology to accomplish their mission. In the play three notorious businessmen monopolize two intangible cultural heritage of the people; bed-time folk-tale lullabies, ritually sung by the people for their children to make them fall asleep at night, and traditional recipes. Red-listing and commercialization of these basic rights, along with severe surveillance, results in sleepless nights, hungry, imprisoned offenders, and choked public life. Two cats find a little-girl and the king, a Master chef, to cook an ancient recipe which destroys the ‘villains’ strategies, finally restoring the situation to some extent.

The Director
Mayukh Dutta has performed in more than 40 plays ofChetla Krishti Sansad.He has worked with renowned directors of Bengal like Pinaki Guha, Raja Bhattacharyya, Manish Mitra, Tulika Das, Debesh Roychowdhury and many others.He has attended workshops of many eminent personalities like Goutam Halder, Anjan Deb and Feisal Alkazi.Story of Lori is his first directorial work in theatre.

The Playwright
Dr. Samik Bindu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology at Panchanan Barma University (Coochbehar, West Bengal).He is a member of Chetla Krishti Sansad and is associated with children’s theatre for last 30 years. He has acted in 15 plays produced by the Sansad and written four plays staged by it.

The Group
Chetla Krishti Sansad was established in 1985 for the welfare of children, and with the dream of making a social change by giving expression to the thoughts of down-trodden children through theatre. Till date it has staged more than 40 productions and has received rave reviews. Now, the group has extended to a large family; the ones who started their journey as child artists in the group have now grown up to mature theatre workers. In addition to children’s welfare, the group is now equipped with productions by adults. Although the group is run only by donation and meager financial support from the common people, without any Government or non-Government sponsorship, the determination and discipline of our theatre workers give us the hope to change the mode of life through theatre.

Cast& Credits
Bhije Biral: Partha Debnath
Biral Tapaswsi: Piali Samanta
Mr. Baron: Aritra Dey
Mr.Tycoon: Tanmay Banerjee
Mr.Magnate: Abhishek Dey
Mantri Charmagaj: Swarnendu Das
Raja: Adrija Basu
Adabata & Man 1: Chiranjeet Haldar
Jeera Bata & Man 2: Ayan Debnath
Mr.Nerdy & Sena 2: Arkoranjan Bhattacharya
Miss Info: Shubhannita Guha / Monomita Chaudhury
Special Child: Mrittika Chakraborty

Children 1: Tanirika Das
Children 2: Dibyatanu Dutta
Children 3: Aman Ghosh
Senapati: Sundarraj Roy
Radhuni & Man 3: Anirban Saha
Women 1: Pritha Biswas
Woman 2: Sayantika Dey
Woman 3: Srabana Chattopadhyay
Sena 1: Mayukh Dutta

Music: Subhadeep Sarkar & Aritra Dey
Set Design: Swarnendu Das
Stage set-up: Surojit Dey
Make-up: Bhanu Mitra
Light: Kalyan Ghosh
Costume: Piali Samanta
Props: Adrija Basu
Choreography: Sreya Das

Special thanks to Pinaki Guha, Samarjeet Dey, Sayantani Dey, Rwitobroto Mukherjee, Pushan Dasgupta, Anwesh Bhattacharya, Kaushik Pal, Arka Chakraborty, Debajyoti Bhattacharya, Tunak Banerjee

Playwright: Samik Bindu
Director: Mayukh Dutta

Manohar Khushalani

Manohar Khushalani

Prof. Manohar Khushalani is a former Visiting Faculty at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi. The courses he taught were: Animation & Graphics, Non-Linear Editing for Film and Radio and Theatre Appreciation.  He has won a total of nine Excellence in Teaching awards for all the courses he has taught at IIITD Earlier he retired from Government of India as Director Environment Management, Central Water Commission and held many senior positions in the Government Based on a Belief that Culture and Environment are the two keys to global sustainability , Manohar Khushalani has launched two portals: A Portal on Environment and Water called One Vorld at url: www.onevorld.org and two Ezines on Culture called Stage Buzz at url: www.stagebuzz.in He has taught extensively in varied subjects such as Dam Safety, Instrumentation, CAD, IT, Animation, Theatre, Newspaper Editing. He has conducted Courses on Environment Management, Water Shed Development, Team Building and Personality Development. He was an Expert Member of Prasar Bharti’s Committee for Grading & Short listing Films for Telecast on all channels of Doordarshan.  He is a Radio Anchor for All India Radio and has moderated several programs for the Rajdhani Channel He is a well-known Theatre Actor/Director and Critic, has been involved in theatre since 1977. He has worked as an actor in over 50 plays with almost every leading director/Actor in the Country including Badal Sircar, Feisal Alkazi, Amal Allana, M.K. Raina, Anuradha Kapoor, Maya Rao, Manohar Singh, Prasanna, Rati Bartholomew and Sushmita Mukherji. He has been active in the social sector as a street theatre activist. As a member of Workshop Theatre, Theatre Union and Prayog, Khushalani has participated in street plays taking up major social issues such as dowry, bride burning, Sati, banned medicinal drugs and communalism. Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay Won’t Pay, both directed by him, received rave notices from critics and audiences alike. Other plays directed by him include Badal Sircar’s, Sagina Mahato and Boris Vian’s Empire Builders for Ruchika Theatre Group. Khushalani has also acted in a few films such as Sudhir Mishra's Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi , Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Café and Pradeep Krishan's Annie Gives Those Ones. He is an Animator & Graphics Designer and has directed a number of documentaries. He also held a number of Honorary positions and was President of North India Films Association, He was the Chairman of  Jury for UGC CEC Educational Films Competition and has been on their Preview Committee since last many years. He was on the preview committee of Door Darshan Channel 3, was a visiting Professor at National School of Drama, New Delhi, and Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, AJKMCRR, Jamia Milia Islamia and Professor in Media at FICT, Delhi  He has judged a large number of Drama Competitions and conducted a number of Theatre / Management Games Workshops with Institutions such as AIIMS, NTPC, CWPRS, NWA, Karve Nari Prakshishan Sansthan, FICT, IIT, MAMC, Gargi College, KNC, Tagore International School and Vivekananda School. He is a Theatre Critic for IIC Diary, has also been a Columnist with Midday and Pioneer Daily and wrote Column's Called Culture Cocktail and Footlights Respectively. He was also the Guest Editor for an issue on Folk Theatre of ICCR Journal Horizons. He has written for Times of Indian, Hindustan Times, Blitz, Hard News, Hindu Business Line, Theatre India & Art Times. He has designed dams and hydraulic structures for the Government. He is a programmer and has developed Engineering design software in Fortran. He is a co-author of Irrigation Practice & Design (Vol 1 to5 - 1500 pages) published by Oxford & IBH and sponsored by National Book Trust. He has been a Director, Environment and Sociology, at the National Water Academy, Khadakwasla and Director, Environment Management Directorate, Central Water Commission and Member Secretary, National Environmental Monitoring Committee for River Valley Projects. He was also Director of Instrumentation Directorate in the Dam Safety Organisation. He was Chief General Manager and Head of Water Resources at Scott Wilson and is an accredited consultant with numerous other organizations He is a Delhi Public School, BITS Pilani, IIT Delhi and FTI Pune Alumini. He was also the President of BITS Pilani Alumni Association, Pune.

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