Theatre in India
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Indian Theatre is an old and variegated art form. Bharata wrote Natya Shastra (200 BC - 400 AD), a dissertation on the structure and purpose of theatre in society. Plays were written mainly under patronization of the kings and in verse form.
India has never been the permanent settlement of one culture. India was invaded a number of times and in every case a part of the invaders stayed in their conquered lands. They played a major role in shaping of Indian culture and heritage. The Medieval India experienced a grand fusion with the invaders from the middle-east.
India, as a colony of the British Empire, used theatre as one of its instruments in protest. To resist, the British Govt. had to impose Dramatic Performance Act in 1876. From the last half of the 19th century, theatres in India experienced a boost in numbers and practice.
After independence in 1947, theatres spread throughout India as one of the means of entertainment and one of the means of protest.
India, being a multi-cultural nation, cannot be associated with a unique trend and feature in its theatres.
Presently, major threats to Indian Theatre are the spread of Television Industry and spread of the Cinema produced in the Mumbai film industry. Lack of finance is another major trouble.
[edit] History of Indian theatre
[edit] Theatre in ancient India
(To be expanded)
[edit] Theatre in medieval India
(To be expanded)
[edit] Theatre in India under British rule
(To be expanded)
[edit] Indian theatre after Independence (1947-1992)
(To be expanded)
[edit] Contemporary (post-1992) Indian theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Improvization
Improvization is a very new art form to India. Very few theatre groups and very few public performances have been done.
A few theatre groups who practise improvization: Yours Truly Theatre
Yours Truly Theatre uses playback theatre, complete the story format, and other theatre format done in the improvization style.
[edit] Theatre in India in different Indian languages and regions
- Bengali Theatre
- Kannada Theatre
- Marathi Theatre
- Manipuri Theatre
- Hindi Theatre
(More to be added)
[edit] Personalities in Indian theatre
[edit] Ancient Age
(More to be added)
[edit] Medieval age
(To be expanded)
[edit] Under British rule
- Dinabandhu Mitra
- Michael Madhusudan Dutta
- Rabindranath Tagore
- Horasim Lebedev
- Agha Hasr Kashmiri
(More to be added)
[edit] After Independence (1947 onwards)
Theatre Directors & writers
- Ebrahim Alkazi,ex. Director NSD
- Habib Tanvir,Director & writer, Naya Theatre, Bhopal
- Bansi Kaul,Theatre director,Bhopal
- Ratan Thiyam,Director Chorus Theatre,Manipur
- Shiela Bhatia,pioneer in punjabi theatre,Delhi
- Dr. M. Sayeed Alam,director,Pirot Group, Delhi
- Begum Zaidi,
- Inder Lall Das,senior theatre activist in Delhi
- D.P. Sinha
- Mahesh Dattani,Playwright,Theatre & Film Director
- Devendra Raj Ankur,ex.Director, NSD,Delhi
- Safdar Hashmi,Theatre Activist,Pioneer in street theatre movement in India
- Arvind Gaur,Director,Asmita Theatre Group,Delhi
- Usha Ganguly,Rangkarmee Group , kolkatta
- Ramesh Mehta
- R.G. Anand
- Gopal Sharman
- Jalbala Vaidya
- Utpal Dutta,Political Theatre Director,Kolkatta
- Girish Karnad - Kannada
- Shankar Nag - Kannada
- K.V. Subbanna - Kannada
- B.V. Karanth - Kannada, Hindi
- K.V. Akshara - Kannada
- Sambhu Mitra,Actor Director ,Kolkatta
- Vijay Tendulkar,playwright,Marathi
- Shyamanand Jalan
- Arun Mukhopadhyay
- Bibhas Chakrabarty
- Sachin Gupta,Playwright,Theatre Director
- Uma Jhunjhunwala
- Suman Mukhopadhyay
- Bratya Basu
- Rudraprasad Sengupta
- Badal Sircar
- Satyadev Dubey
- Manoj Mitra
- Mohit Chatterjee
- Bijon Bhattacharya
- Kumara Varma
- Shashank Bahuguna
- Kavalam Narayana Panikkar
- Satish Alekar
- D.Raghoothaman
- M.G.Jyotish
- Karthik Kumar
- TM.Karthik Srinivasan
- Sunil Vishnu K
- Sarvesh Sridhar
- Veenapani Chawla, founder and artistic director of adishakti theatre
(More to be added and ordered alphabetically)
[edit] Forms of Indian theatre
[edit] Classical Indian dance
The most orthodox and complex form of musical theatre based on the Natya Shastra. dance dance revolution rules!
[edit] Traditional Indian theatre
(To be expanded) See Guru Padma Shri Mani Madhava Chakyar, Mani Damodara Chakyar and Kutiyattam
[edit] Indian folk theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Modern Indian theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Indian puppet theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Indian street theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Other Indian theatres
(To be expanded)
[edit] Awards and festivals in Indian theatre
[edit] Awards
(To be expanded)
[edit] Festivals
Hindu-Evam Metroplus Theatre festival
Nehru Centre's National Theatre Festival
11TH NATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2007
Comprising of 21 reputed Indian plays from 9 centres in 11 languages, presented over 14 days
(This festival features traditional and contemporary plays, as well as adaptations of classical plays in several regional languages, English and Sanskrit)
From Kerala we have the privilege of having Sopanam again with the maestro Kevalam Narayana Panikkar coming with a Malayalam play Otta Mulachi and a Sanskrit classic in Kalidas’s Malavikaagnimitram. Aamchi Mumbai and Marathi boast of a duet, being Vijay Mishra’s local Choukatali Vihir, while Saish Deshpande’s Waiting Room comes from Panaji, Goa. This may well have been three if Waman Kendre had not decided to do his own adaptation of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex in Hindustani this time, tilted Vedhapashya! Other Hindustani plays are Ekjute’s Romeo & Juliet, Devendra Raj Ankur’s Hum Tumse Pyar Karega Kaun, Dinesh Thakur’s Mitr, Sunil Shanbag’s take on Mumbai mill workers, Cotton 56, Polyester 84, Suresh Sharma’s Kaafka – Ek Adhyay, Sanjay Sahay’s take on Nikolai Gogol’s Inspector-General titled Jaanch Partal coming from Gaya in Bihar and, quite significantly for this festival, Prasanna’s very own interpretation of Mahakavi Bhavbhuti’s (also known as Bhavabhuti ) UIttara Ramacharitha.
Suren Thakar Mehul’s Mrutunjay is in Gujarati, Santanu Das’s Manush-Manushi in Bengali, Kewal Dhaliwal’s Loona in Punjabi and Chidambara Rao Jambhe’s Oh Lear in Kannada. Distance never being a problem for this festival, from the most eastern and least accessible part of India comes Baharul Islam’s Assamese offering Apeksha. Did we leave anything out? Yes, the Konkani play coming from Goa, being Kala Academy Goa’s Devchar Khelayata, Mogyank Melayta, an interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Jayendranath Haladankar.
[edit] Institutional aids in Indian theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Major groups and companies in Indian theatre
- Nandikar - West Bengal
- Neenasam - Karnataka
- Rangayana - Karnataka
- Ranga Shankara - Karnataka
- Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA)
- Asmita Theatre Group,Delhi
- Chetana
- Rangakarmee
- Chilsag Chillies Theatre Company[Chilsag]
- Padatik
- (( SEAGULL THEATRE, Guwahati, Assam)
- Little Thespian
- Tritiya Sutra Performance Company
- Aarshi Theatre Group
- Theatre Formation Paribartak
- Bahuroopi
- Prithvi Theater
- The Performers' Wing
- Sopanam Institute of Performing Arts and Research
- YoursTruly Theatre, Bangalore
- Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre,Kerala
- www.abhinayatheatrevillage.org
- Samooh theatre
- evam Entertainment, Chennai
- ASAP Productions, Chennai
- [ adishakti laboratoryfor theatre arts pondicherry-- http://www.adishaktitheatrearts.org]
Adishakti is a performance company engaged in the research and reanimation of traditional knowledges in theatre, dance, music, movement, puppet and craft forms -- with a view to creating a contemporary hybrid aesthetic and performance language.
Additionally Adishakti's work and experiments cover those areas, which elliptically involve the performer and her environment medicine,architecture/construction technolog ies and the eco system. For Adishakti is driven, quite simply, by its apprehension of art/aesthetic practice as a unique bridge not only between diverse performance forms, traditions and knowl edge systems but also in fact between a range of diverse realms, which are not normally or visibly in communication with each other.
Adishakti therefore sees itself as a unique and potentially seminal site (of transition, passage, cultural traffic) committed to the cause of cultural and creative alterity . And as such, it recognizes and addresses complex modes of communication while preserving the “difference” of the speakers/partners in any given creative interchange.
ABOUT EVAM evam [aei-vum] adv so, also; conj and; used as a link between parts of a sentence
(or people or mediums); (sl) cool; fun; enthu; young; esp positive energy evam is envisioned to be a stress busting factory – capable of conceiving and delivering an entertaining tale to its audience, in whatever medium it deems suitable– theatre, television or cinema, or delectable combinations of them all!
evam [aei-vum] adv addition; n professional Currently active in the form of live theatre content; shows for public, corporates and fund-raisers, we pride ourselves as an entertaining and engaging marketing communications media for our brand partners!
evam [aei-vum] n entertainment; adj entertaining; fig (creating) At evam, we bust your stress. ps:and have a ball doing it!
[edit] Major productions in Indian theatre
- Neeldarpan (1875)
- Evam Indrajit (?)
- Girish Karnad,s Tughlaq by ibrahim Elkaji
- Girish Karnad,s Tughlaq by Arvind Gaur(1994)
- Pagla Ghoda (?)
- Ghasiram Kotwal (?)
- Madhyam Vyayog (1985)
- Avanavan Kadamba (1975]
- Swadesh Deepak's Courtmartial by Arvind Gaur(1996,still running)
- odeipus (1982)
- trojan woman (1984)
- rosengrantz and guildersten are dead (1984)
- savitri (1989)
- Mahesh Dattani's Final Solutions by Arvind Gaur(1997)
- impressions of bhima (1995)
- brhannala (1997)
- ganapati (1999)
- Madhavi, solo by Rashi Bunny(2003)
- the hare and the tortoise (2007)
- Five point someone (2007)
- Python Hysssteria (2007)
- Our Ice berg is melting (2007)
- Oh God (2006)
- Odd Couple (2006)
- ART (2007)
- Run for your wife (2007)
(More to be added and arranged chronologically)
[edit] Famous and/or popular stages in Indian theatre
- Ranu Mukherjee Mancha (Academy of Fine Arts), Kolkata
- Rabindra Sadan, Kolkata
- Girish Mancha, Kolkata
- cornea theater group ,sanjai, bangalore
- Darpana ,Ahmedabad
- Sri Ram Centre, mandi House
- [[Sir Ratan Tata Koothu Kovil at Adishakti pondicherry]
- SEAGULL STUDIO THEATRE, Guwahati ASSAM
(More to be added}
[edit] Theatre to Films
- Om Shiv Puri
- Nasirudeen Shah
- Kangana Ranawat
- Shilpa Shukla,Chek de India,trained by Arvind Gaur
[edit] Indian theatre in foreign languages
(To be expanded)
[edit] Indian theatre in other countries
(To be expanded)
[edit] Foreign plays and/or plots in Indian theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Problems and issues in Indian theatre
[edit] Finance
(To be expanded)
[edit] Theatre for poor versus poor theatre
(To be expanded)
[edit] Theatre versus television
(To be expanded)
[edit] Theatre for development in India
(To be expanded)

