The Play
It’s me, Edith Piaf is a monodrama performance in German or Russian (both are possible) with songs of Edith Piaf’s repertoire in original language. When alive, she was called ‘The Soul of the French Nation’. After she died she became an icon of French music. The songs of her repertoire are still popular in the whole world. The legendary singer, who began her career on the Parisian pavements, answered the question about the meaning of her life with “Love. What else?” This production on the play written by Nina Mazur has been created by the alumnae of St. Petersburg Theatre Academy.

The Director
Evgenia Boginskaya, theatre director and actress, born in 1984, lives in St. Petersburg. She graduated as an actress from the Theatre Academy of Vadivostok. While being an actress she felt that the boundaries of her activity could be wider. She moved to St. Petersburg, where she studied at the Academy of Theatre Arts under the Russian legendary theatre teacher, V. Filshtinsky. In 2016 she graduated and got the diploma for being a theatre director. She has been working as a theatre director and a teacher of acting, with professional actors since 2008. Her directorial works include A Wife written by A. Chekhov, Antony and Cleopatra by W. Shakespeare, A holiday long sleep by N.
Ostrovsky, The choir is dying by A. Volodin, Three Stories based on A. Skivko-Korovkina’s play Bugs, It’s me, Edith Piaf by N. Mazur, and Rainbows over Hiroshima by Inoue Hisasi. Evgenia has worked as an acting teacher at Teatr Nowy im. T. Łomnickiego, Poznan, Poland; Teatr Zagłębia, Sosnowiec, Poland; and Teatr Współczesny im. Edmunda Wiercińskiego, Wroclaw, Poland.

The Playwright
Nina Mazur (Germany, Hanover) was born in Bishkek, Kirgizstan. She graduated from Moscow State Theatre Academy (GITIS), Faculty of History and Theory of Theatre, and post-graduated at St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre, Music and Cinema. Before leaving for Hanover, she worked at the theatre department of Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Arts (Kiev), and was a professor of History of Art in the University. Nina Mazur is the creator, coordinator and consultant of many international theatre festivals all around the world. Her activity in ITI, UNESCO is well-known. She is the Vice- President of Monodrama Forum, International Theatre Institute, UNESCO, and a member of German Centre of ITI. Nina Mazur is also a member of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) and a member of the International Dance Council by UNESCO. She is a theatre critic and author of
many articles on theatre in professional magazines. She is also the author of the book The Stage Interpretations of the Ballets of Ukrainian Composers. Nina Mazur is a member of literature society Die Faehre (Hanover, Germany) and a member of literature association APIA (London, UK). She is a playwright and her plays have been translated into many languages and staged in many countries.

The Group
Internationales Berliner Drama Theater (International Berlin Theatre of Drama) was founded in 2014 by the German actress, Anastasia Weinmar and her stage partner and an honorary actor of Russia, A. Ivanov, as an international company of professional theatre artists. It aims to exchange scenic experiences between West and East European theatre traditions and to promote the culture of each other. In three years of its existence, the IBDT has created 3 plays. The 4 th production is being rehearsed. The last production of the company, a monodrama after Nina Mazur’s play, It’s me, Edith Piaf has been performed all-over Europe and was/is invited to numerous monodrama festivals, such as Saint Muse in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Impulse in Bishkek (Kirgizstan), Maria in Kiev (Ukraine),
Small Theatre Festival in Lublin (Poland), and Albamono in Albania.

Cast & Credits
Edith Piaf : Anastasia Weinmar
Set & Costume : Ilshat Vildanov
Musical Arrangement : Natalia Smotritskaya
Playwright : Nina Mazur
Direction : E. Boginskaya

The Form
It is said that the word Lavani is derived from the wordlavanya which means beauty. Lavani is a genre of
music popular inMaharashtra. It is a combination of traditional song and dance, which is performed on
the beats ofDholki, a percussion instrument. Lavani is noted for its powerful rhythm. This traditional
form has contributed substantially to the development of Marathi folk theatre. In Maharashtra, Southern
Madhya Pradesh and North Karnataka, it is performed by female performers wearing nine-yard longsaris.
The songs are sung in a quick tempo.

The Performance
The presentations in this performance will be as following:
Mujra, Gan – Natrang Ubha
Gavalan – Kheltana Rangbai Holicha
Baithakichi Lavani – Bharal Abhal Pausali Pavan Ga Bai Shravanacha Un Mala Zhepena
Phadachi Lavani: Rajasa Dhya Va Govind Vida
Chhakkad: Bai Ga Bai Ga Kasala Naura Hawa Ga Tuzhla Saang Mala

The Director & Danseuse
Vaishali Jadhav is a popular dancer and actor known for her work in the Marathi film industry. From a
very young age Vaishali has been participating in dance competitions and has been a winner for three
years consecutively. She has travelled to the USA to participate in a cultural programme. For the first
time she appeared in an ‘Item Song’ in the film Jau Tithe Khaad directed by Abhay Kirti in 2007.Vaishali
has also performed a Lavani song in Malak, a film produced in 2015. Her film Ghuma, directed by
Abhishek Datar was released in 2017.

Cast & Credits
On Stage : Vaishali Jadhav, Rupali Jadhav
Dholki : Ram Gondhali
Tabla : Vikas Dawale
Harmonium : Vinayak Aundhkar
Co-artists : Sandeep Gaadhe, Hanmant Mandwale, Sonali Jadhav, Shubhangi Jadhav, Puja Jadhav, Rani Musle, Ragini Kale, Maya Andhare, Lata Shinde, Tejaswini Shinde, Shama Sheikh

Choreography : Sarla Bai Nandorekar, Yogesh Deshmukh
Make-up & Hair : Yogesh Deshmukh, Vijay Gaekwad
Group Leaders : Asha Bai Jadhav, Anika Jadhav
Proprietor : Kishan Appa Jadhav
Director : Vaishali Jadhav

The Play
Syaah Hashiyon ki Roshni revolves around three people who are caught in an isolated place situated near the merging borders of two regions which may have a common ethnic background. The dialects spoken by the characters differ from each other, aggravating the conflict further to the level of violence.
The whole world, including India, stands at a juncture where internal boundaries are being created due to political reasons. Marxists, Jihadis, Hindu fundamentalists and other such groups have emerged in the last decade or so due to political dissatisfaction and nonchalance of the government’s attitude towards civil liberty and human rights. This play is an attempt to touch the depths of the human psyche by permeating through the layers of culture, religion,
ethnicity and language.

Director’s Note
Many opinions are made and many are changed when the characters of this play start questioning each other. The situation may have been caused due to war. But a much more sinister battle is happening within the confines of one’s soul. These characters meet at a point where no ideological jargon can support their voices. It is a situation where no pretensions or false notions find a place.

The Director
Rajesh Singh was born in West Champaran district of Bihar in 1979. He completed his graduation from Bihar University and studied theatre at Shri Ram Centre for performing arts. After completing the course he worked with the Sahitya kala Parishad repertory and Shri Ram Centre repertory. Then, he studied at National School of Drama, New Delhi with specialization in Theatre Techniques and Design. He also took training in music from Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Delhi. In 2008 he was awarded with INLAKS Scholarship and went to London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, UK for a course in Theatre Design, Direction and Stage Management. After completing his NSD & LAMDA training he engaged creatively with many theatre groups as designer, director and music designer and also actively participated in various theatre workshops organized by National School of Drama, Extension
Department as a resource person. He was awarded the Mahindra Award for Excellence in Theatre Arts for Sound design of the play Laila Majnu. Currently, he is working as the artistic show director for the musical theatrical production in Kingdom of Dream Company, Gurgaon. He is also running a theatre company Flying Feathers Art Association.

The Playwright
Kaj Himmelstrup is a retired teacher, musician and playwright from Denmark. He was the member of the Board of the Danish Dramatists' Association for 8 years in the 1970s and the federal representative of the Danish Art Council. He has written many screenplays for television and is the recipient of numerous awards. Some of his famous plays are Clatta, The Mansion, The Dear Little Ones, Black Laces Green Olives, Richard’s Guest and The
Spoilsport amongst others.

Cast & Credits
Man : Teekam Joshi

Girl : Nidhi Mishra
Soldier : Shaurya Shanker
Light Design : Govind Singh Yadav
Scenic Painting : Aruna Malik
Sound Design : Sandy
Poster & Brochure : Vishala R Mahale
Backstage : Mazibur Rehman, Souti Chakraborty
Original Playwright : Kaj Himmelstrup
Hindi Translation : Nalini R Joshi
Scenic Design & Direction : Rajesh Singh

The Plays
Sorry Mamma
In this play, the mother thinks that she is aware of her daughter and son’s activities, whereas, on the other hand the children are thinking vice-versa.The things they see, listen and observe, affect them, and according to the provided stimulus, they react and act genuinely.

Top Secret
In the play,the landlord threatens Vicky’s father toeither clear the rent that is due for last five monthsor vacate the house. Vicky’s father has hardly earned anything in those five months. Vicky gets deprived of going for a picnic from school. His school friends arrange money for Vicky. But the landlord asks Vicky’s father to leave the house.
Director’s NoteIn context of children as well as the dramatic world, we started with the five psycho-social developmental stages of childhood as explained by Erik H. Erikson. All the developing phases of childhood have a through line of super-speed action for a child to trace his/her journey on the scale of life with parents, family, neighbourhood, school, peers, friends and role models, before entering into adulthood. During this rushed journey into the unknown, the child develops the desired qualities of hope, will, purpose, competence and the virtue of staying true to others. All these ideas were explored on floor with practical exercises, tasks and improvisation in sub-groups, encouraging students to understand childhood on one hand and develop a creative working experience with all the members of the group on the other.

The Director & Playwright
Abdul Latif Khatana graduated from NSD in 1986 with specialisation in Acting. In addition to devising, writing and directing several plays that have been nationally and internationally performed, he has conducted numerous workshops on acting. He is the founder of Adabi Sangat(Kashmir) and the theatre group- Kirdar. He is a founder member and the Chief of NSD’s Theatre-in-Education Company. He is credited with conceptualising and organising the company’s first national theatre festival for children called ‘Jashn-e-Bachpan’, followed by another national festival, ‘Bal Sangam’, of folk and traditional performing arts by children. He has contributed in designing the theatre/drama syllabus of NCERT for classes 1 to 12. He has taught in various theatre institutions, colleges,
universities, and NGOs throughout the country and abroad. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of acting at NSD, Delhi besides looking after its TIE Company. The GroupThe National School of Drama is a premier theatre institution imparting training in dramatic arts. It is an autonomous organization, fully financed by the Govt. of India. Over the year the school has progressed on various aspects of theatre including a rapid expansion of its activities in all part of the country. Under its outreach program the National School of Drama (T.I.E. Wing) Tripura started one-year certificate course in Theatre-in-Education on 9th August, 2012.

Cast & Credits

Sorry Mamma
Sushant : Samiran Brahma
Dinesh : Didwm Basumatary
Anand : Ankit Lohar
Riki : Rajat Singha
Rupa : Thokchom Roshni Devi
Mom : Haobam Hemlata Devi / Sharmistha Chakraborty
Teacher : Sharmistha Chakraborty

Top Secret
Vicky : Birendra Ganju
Mother : Dipika Dutta Mukherjee
Teacher : Dipika Dutta Mukherjee / Rupasree Debnath
Scrap Collection & Rocky : Kilang TemsuImsong / Raju Debnath
Father : Sonit Jyoti Saikia

Landlord & Champak : Binoytosh Ghosh / Rakesh Bora
Binto : G. Imotomba Sharma
Pinky : Ila Das
Assistant Director : Manik Roy
Designer : Babita Pandey
Music Director : Suneet Bora
Assistant Music : Surajit Debbarma
Choreography : Vikram Mohan
Light Design : G. Imotomba Sharma / ManojitDebroy
Light Operation : Manik Roy & G. Imotoba Sharma
Stage Manager : JayantaDey
Back Stage : Bansing Basumatary / UttamChakraborty / Pabitra Mashahary& Kajal Das

Programme Coordinator : Subir Roy
Assistant : Jagmohan Singh Negi
Camp Director : Vijai Kumar Singh
Playwright & Director : Abdul Latif Khatana

The Play
The play is about one of the many incidents that have happened in the life of Balwant Gargi. Soutan deals with the incestuous relationship between a mother, a son and a daughter, in the mud courtyard of a village. Two hags unfold the action with song and drum; a witch doctor questions and lashes the characters, aiming at healing them; in the end the mother possessed by the spirit, of the dead daughter, in a fit of hate, strangles the daughter in law. What follows is a macabre scene of incest.

Director’s note
The play is about a triangular relationship of a mother, her son and her daughter in law. It revolves around the themes of lust, sarcasm, atrocity and the struggle between financial and physical possession. The characters mentally disguise themselves and enact all the forbidden feelings realizations and try to find the reality of their incomplete desired dreams.

The Director
An alumnus from National School of Drama, Satwinder Singh has come a long way since the day he started his career in Punjab. He developed his interest in set designing at an early stage of his life. He has designed sets for productions like Daughter of the Bin, Kudesan, Baba Bantu, Damroo, Mando, Vadda Banda Chotta Banda. At NSD, he did back-stage work for many plays. Now he is working with his own Amritsar based theatre group, Artistically Busy Unit.

The Playwright
A renowned personality of Punjabi Literature, Balwant Gargi is known for his raw presentations. nspired from an incident that happened in his childhood, he started writing this play in 1964 and completed its first draft in 1970. The incident left him an everlasting impression on his mind and he couldn't resist but thinking about it and penned it down.

The Group
This play is being presented as part of National School of Drama’s Graduate Showcase (Class of 2017), which aims to provide a platform for emerging theatre practitioners, allowing them to share their work with a wide audience.

Cast & Credit
On Stage : Aamir, Brinda,Pallavi, Manohor, Swati, Niranjan, Gurleen, Priyanka, Lakshmi, Gaytri, Talwar, Anjali, Deputy, Prabhjot

Stage Manager : Gopi
Music : Ravi Nandan
Lights : Ujjwal
Design & Direction : Satwinder Singh (Sunny Masson)

The Play
From the day plastic was invented, humans have used it in almost each and everything except the edible stuff. We use this plastic, a non-degradable material, daily, because of its extreme user friendly character. Today it is an inseparable part of our lives and it is irreplaceable as well. It cannot be destroyed. Its non degradable nature has endangered the aquatic, terrestrial and amphibian species, and this is why it is the prime reason of destruction of many things and one of the prominent reasons of global warming.  This artificial creation is also hazardous for humans and yet there is no end to its use. We are getting chocked by it and also destroying our surroundings. Hence we need to find a way out of this trap.

Director’s Note
The Transparent Trap is a physical theatre based long-act play without any dialogues. It portrays the relationship between humans and plastic, as it is, without commenting on the use of plastic or advising people whatsoever.
The music composer and the light designer have tried to bring in a sense of transparency which is seen being trapped in the music as well as visuals, as the name suggests.

Director & Playwright
Shrikant Prabhakar Bhide is an actor, writer, choreographer as well as director of plays. He is a founder and director of the experimental theatre group Dhyaas, Pune. Five of his plays have won state level competitions, three of them were performed in international festivals, and more than ten plays in national festivals. He specialises in visuals, compositions and mob sequences which are very well appreciated by the viewers. In Pune, he initiated working on Physical Theatre and is striving hard to reach out to maximum audience to explore this form of art. He has scripted 5 plays of Physical Theatre on social issues, which leave an impact on the audience.
Shrikant caught the knack of writing during his college days. His writing is inspired by stories which have a lot of visuals and which can keep the audience gripped. Two of his plays Parwana and Na Milaleli Patra are drama adaptations from the international best seller novels Bread Winner and Parwana. Most of his scripts have won state level awards and have been critically acclaimed by experts.

The Group
The organisation Dhyaas is based in Pune and was established in 2008 by youngsters and theatre enthusiasts, inspired from the inter-collegiate dance and drama competitions, and hence decided to work with complete dedication to theatre. In the year 2010, Dhyaas, Pune, got registered and began to work on state level and district level competitions. It is constantly working on one act/two act plays, long act plays, Physical Theatre, and other new platforms to enhance this field of experimental theatre. The group has performed and participated in different national and international festivals. Dhyaas, Pune is one of the active experimental groups among the well-known theatre groups of Pune and it has created a name by consistently working on Phyisical Theatre performances.

Cast & Credits
Artists : Akshaykumar Mande, Shrikant Bhide, Harshwardhan Waghmare, Shreyash Dhere, Mrunmayi Apte,  achana Kakade

Music : Pradyumna Chaware

Lights : Rajas Bapat
Playwright & Director : Shrikant Prabhakar Bhide

The Play
1920’s – Poland and Lithuania are under Russian occupation. Poles and Lithuanians are deprived of civil rights. They are oppressed, imprisoned or sentenced to forced labour deep into Russia and Siberia. Guślarz begins the ‘Dziady’ feast under the sacred tree. Ghosts conjured up by Guślarz appear for the feast. Ghosts gather in the cosmos. A young man’s ghost seems to be stuck between the sky and the earth. It is the ghost of a poet. The other ghosts reveal their divine plan to him. The young man’s ghost writes an inscription: ‘Gustaw Died, Konrad was Born’. Then he falls to the floor, fainting. The ghost wakes up. He recognizes the cell of a tsarist prison in Vilnius. He starts writing a poem about his imprisonment, inventing his fellow prisoners who are played by other ghosts. The prisoners of Vilnius tsarist prison tell their stories. Konrad himself fights with God. Evil spirits appear in the cell. They flee as a priest comes after being called by the nearby monastery. Konrad has a vision of future events. Konrad receives the gift of prophecy. The prophecy foretells the triumph of the oppressed and the failure of the tyrants. Under the sacred tree the ritual comes to an end. Guślarz walks away along with his ‘Dziady’ ritual.

Director’s Note
Reading Mickiewicz is one thing, understanding Mickiewicz another. But listening to Mickiewicz is a completely different matter. Personally, after two years spent on working on ‘Dziady’, I have an impression that it is one great score. The music is hidden in words; it is a requiem for the martyrs of the ‘national cause’.

The Playwright & Director
After graduating from the Faculty of Theatre Studies at The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, Piotr Tomaszuk became the manager of The Bialystok Puppet Theatre. In the beginning Tomaszuk directed performances for national theatres only – an important play was Turlajgroszek, based on his own screenplay. The presentation of the play led to the founding of TeatrWierszalin in Supraśl. In 2000-2003 Tomaszuk was the manager of the Banialuka Theatre in Bielsko-Biala. At that time he collaborated with BajPomorskiin Toruń, staging his own play Circus Decameron based on the original text by Giovanni Boccaccio. PiotrTomaszuk is the winner of numerous prizes, such as KonradSwinarski Prize, Leon Schiller Prize, the Prize of the International
Theatre Institute, as well as the Fringe First Prize at the Fringe Festival of Edinburgh. In 2006 he was rewarded with the Polish Silver Medal ‘Gloria Artis’.

The Group
TeatrWierszalin was established by PiotrTomaszuk in Supraśl, north-east Poland, in 1991. Plays by TeatrWierszalindraw on the cultural heritage of Podlasie region. Coarse aesthetics of folk art, simple stage design and choral chants are its distinctive features.Critics compare Wierszalin to such phenomena as Jerzy Grotowski's ‘Laboratorium Theatre’ or Tadeusz Kantor's ‘Cricot 2’. The group has performed all over the world, including Delhi, Mumbai, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, Toronto, London, Sydney, as well as Germany, Italy and Switzerland.TeatrWierszalin has been rewarded with the prestigious Fringe First award three times. In 1994 Polish Foreign Minister awarded the group with a diploma of recognition for the promotion of Polish culture abroad. In 1998 Wierszalin received the Critics Award of the International Theatre Institute, for its outstanding contribution to world
theatre.

Cast & Credits
Guślarz : Piotr Tomaszuk
Konrad : Rafał Gąsowski

Priest, Senator : Dariusz Matys
Devil : Bartłomiej Olszewski
Devil : Bartłomiej Kwiatkowski
Mrs.Rollinson : Monika Kwiatkowska
Eve : Katarzyna Wolak
Music : Piotr Tomaszuk, Adrian Jakuć-Łukaszewicz
Set design : Mateusz Kasprzak
Author : Adam Mickiewicz
Playwright & Director : Piotr Tomaszuk

The Play & Director’s Note
In today’s world, while we claim that the nations have come closer to each other, this global convergence has also unleashed a strange trail of war, violence and up-rootedness, where the victor and the vanquished are caught in the same ritual of death. This death, physical or metaphorical, is cutting across national borders, faiths and cultures. Seeds of hatred are fodder for brutality, poverty, misery and hopelessness. Kafan – Kafan Chor has two great short stories, one of Munshi Premchand and the other of Amin Kamil (A renowned Kashmiri author). The performance takes an absurd tragic journey, through the contemporary helpless human condition, looking at the past and present, known and unknown forces, which create this landscape of death and destruction. The performance has also
taken poems from different lands, different poets, and poems by soldiers in the battlefield. Despite great scientific advancement, has mankind lost the basic value of being humane?

The Director
M. K. Raina is a well-known theatre luminary, who has been working in the field of theatre for the last three and a half decades, innovating, studying, analyzing, writing and teaching. He has worked extensively in both contemporary and traditional theatre in South Asia and has been instrumental in reviving the traditional folk theatre of Kashmir, Bhand Pather. He has been a visiting faculty of several national and international Institutions, such as National School of Drama, Central University of Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, University of Hawaii USA etc. He has been a fellow at the Stanford University, USA and a scholar-in-residence at the Jamia Millia Central
University, New Delhi. He is a well-known social and cultural activist and is a founder member of SAHMAT, a trust formed to promote communal harmony and social equality. He is also a trustee of the South Asia Foundation, India, and the Artistic Director of the theatre group, Prayog. He has also made documentaries and films for various national institutions and for national channels. For his long term contribution to theatre, he has received several awards including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Sahitya Kala Parishad Samman, Sanskriti Award and B. V. Karanth lifetime achievement award.

The Group
Three Arts Club is one of Delhi’s oldest theatre groups, founded in 1943. TAC enthralled and entertained its audiences for four decades (1943-1983). Former presidents Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Dr. Zakir Hussain, and former Prime Ministers Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and Shri Charan Singh, as well as theatre and film luminaries like Prithviraj Kapoor, Shobhana Samarth and Sunder graced its performances. The club also has the distinction of being one of the first groups to give a platform to women on the Delhi stage. Since it revival in 2008, Three Arts Club organizes annual theatre festivals and has to its credit production of 19 plays in various genres ranging from comedy to drama. TAC has made rapid strides in both the technical and artistic aspects of theatre, especially after its association with M.K. Raina. In June 2017 TAC organized a week- long workshop under his able guidance. Three
Arts Club also extends its activities to educational institutes with the aim of promoting histrionic skills among the new generation and has organized many inter-school theatre competitions. True to its original mission (TAC performed children’s theatre in the 1950s), the group provides a platform to school children in Delhi NCR to explore their creative side and stage their own productions.

Cast & Credits
On Stage : Avanish Pandey, Durgesh Kumar, Kriti V. Sharma, Mukul Singh, Nupur Jain, Pankaj Sharawat,
Sachin Srivastava, Shalini Singh, Vipan Kumar

Lights : Govind Yadav
Sound & Music : Rakesh Kumar Singh
Costumes : Kriti V. Sharma
Stage Manager : Shalini Singh
Back Stage : Avinash Singh, Nidhikant Pandey, Sanjeev Singh
Producer : Anuradha Dar
Hindi Translation of KafanChor : Asif Ali

Storywriters : Munshi Premchand & Amin Kamil
Director : M K Raina

The Play
In order to rehabilitate the widows of Behmai massacre, the government opened an incense stick factory. Until killing the jailed Bandit Queen of Chambal, Lala Ram Thakurain postpones the last rites of immersing the ashes of her husband. Damayanti initiates a discussion questioning why all those massacred were only men, and not women. Series of events, arguments, break- downs and imputing allusions lead them to the appalling truth that a convict committing the crime without participating in it is also a criminal. Lala Ram Thakurain mixes the ashes of her
husband in the incense stick powder as natural justice.

Director’s Note
This is not just a play for me but a relationship. It has my voice. Initially, I thought about the contemporary value of this play and came to the conclusion that it is a serious question on humanity, if caste, class and gender differences still exist in the 21 st century. This play has a serious discourse which reached a point that created a boiling turbulence felt by me during the process of the play. I consider this play as an extension of classic film ‘Bandit Queen’, although the questions and issues raised in the play go beyond that. It was painful going through Phoolan’s life, character and Behmai as an event, but it is even more painful to perform this play since it brings us to the situation where we are ashamed as human beings

The Director
Swati Dubey was born on 1 st February 1988 in Chhatarpur (Madhya Pradesh). She did her graduation in Microbiology and Journalism. She did MBA in Rural Management from Gujarat. She did a one-year diploma course in theatre from Madhya Pradesh School of Drama. In 2014 she got selected for three year diploma course in National School of Drama and specialized in Design and Direction. Presently she is doing theatre in her city Jabalpur

The Playwright
Ashish Pathak was born on 8 September in 1977 at Jabalpur (M.P.). He got involved in theatre during his college days. His knowledge of psychology, sciences and social issues sharpened his writing skills. His plays Popcorn, Red Frock and many more have gained lot of popularity. Ashish believes Drama is be the best weapon to oppose social evils, which not only makes his dramas entertaining but also gives them a conservative and developing platform to innovate more. He has also directed many plays like Vishkanya, The Dumb Dancer, Maaya, Pratiuttar, Vijaynagar, Agarbatti, Popcorn, Red Frock, Yugpurush-Abhipurush, Manusmriti, Sugandhi, Hayvadan, Azaadi ki Mahagatha, Chouraha, Ek Akeli Aurat, Daariyo Fo, Jaadu ka Suit, etc.

The Group

This play is being presented as a part of National School of Drama’s graduate showcase (class of 2017), which aims to provide a platform for emerging theatre practitioners, allowing them to share their work with a wide audience.

Cast and Credit
Thakurain : Rukmini Sircar
Suman : Aruja Srivastava
Kaushalya : Babi Baruah
Parvati : Shwetha Rani H. K.
Lajjo : Pallavi Jadho
Kalli  : Jina Baishya
Nanhi Bai : Goge Bam
Damyanti : Swati Dubey
Ramkali : Rachna Gupta
Sukkan Bai : Snehlata Tagde
Heera : Gagan Shrivatava
Sohan Singh : Bhupendra Singh Jadawat
Shivpal Lala : Aamir Mallick
Bansi Thakur : Vivek Emmaneni
Raghu Thakur : Niranjan Nath
Lala Ram Thakur : Manohar Pandey
Surjan Thakur : Baljit Singh
Set Execution : Rohit Jha
Light Operation : Susheel Mishra
Sound Operation : Pooja Vaidvikhyat
Voice-overs : Govind Namdev, Babi Baruah
Set, Light & Costume Design : Swati Dubey

Playwright : Ashish Pathak
Design & Direction : Swati Dubey

The Play
The son, Jan, who for 22 years has been living in an unnamed land, returns to Europe to visit his mother and his sister, Martha. He comes with his wife, Maria, and decides not to disclose his true identity. This is unfortunate, because the two women, who run a lonely inn, murder their guests and rob them for survival. The only other character is the mute manservant, who in the final scene is Camus stand-in for God.

Director’s Note
The play is based on Camus’s concept of an unjust and indifferent world. The misunderstandings of the play exist on several levels, all of which are applicable to life. First there is the simple misunderstanding of identity. Then there is Jan’s failure to recognize the importance of words in relationships. There is the misunderstanding of Maria who failed to recognize that men and women in love cannot share every moment and at some point must part. The mother failed to recognize the promptings of her own sympathy and valued her need for peace more than another
human being. And there is Martha with her own complexities. So for me, these misunderstandings separate a human from himself, from others and from the world. Human desire is in a perpetual conflict with a world that is arbitrary, illogical and unfair; and the life is equally cruel to the innocents and the criminals which defines the absurdity of existence. Just like the saying “grass always looks greener on the other side” the characters of this play dream of something beyond their league and these farfetched ambitions become suffocating for each one. To sum it all “everyone imagines their heaven in the place where somebody hell is”.

The Director
After graduating from Indraprastha College for Women in 2014, Aruja completed her Diploma in Dramatic Arts from National School of Drama in 2017 with specialization in Design andDirection. She is practicing theatre since 2002 with prominent theatre personalities and artistsacross the country. During college days she has directed and acted in various plays and hasrecently assisted Sanjna Kapoor in a Children’s Theatre Workshop and film director Leena
Yadav in her forthcoming venture, Rajma Chawal.

The Playwright
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in Mondavi, French Algeria. Camus became known for his political journalism, novels and essays during the 1940s. His best-known works, including The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), are exemplars of absurdism. Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 and died on January 4, 1960, in Burgundy, France.

The Group
This play is being presented as a part of national school of drama’s graduate showcase (class of
2017), which aims to provide a platform for emerging theatre practitioners, allowing them to
share their work with a wide audience.

Cast & Credits