230. Footlights and Fervour

Abhishek Majumdar is an award winning playwright, director and scenographer based out of India and UAE. His works have been produced in several countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America and has been translated to multiple languages including French, Spanish, Swedish, Tibetan, Hindi, English, Bangla, Kashmiri, Kannada and Marathi. He is the founder and ex-artistic director of Indian Ensemble. He is Associate Arts Professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi. He is the artistic director of Nalanda Arts Studio Bangalore. He has been published by Penguin India, Oberon Books, Bloomsbury and Palgrave.

Arundhati Raja is Founder Trustee of Jagriti Theatre, a performing arts space in Bengaluru, founded by her and her husband Jagdish Raja.

As an actor, she made her debut on the Bangalore stage in 1977 and has since played a wide variety of roles. In 2005, she premiered the English version of Girish Karnad’s one-woman play, A Heap of Broken Images.

As director she has designed and directed over forty productions. In 2006 Arundhati, was festival coordinator for Kannada Rangabhoomi Namaskara. This was a six-day festival in association with the Karnataka Nataka Academy, of six
plays by eminent Kannada playwrights in English translation.

Gowri Dattu has been a theatre practitioner for most of her life. An actor, singer, director, puppeteer, administrator- Gowri Dattu has many feathers on her cap.

Beginning her journey in theatre as an actress and a singer, Gowri Dattu has acted in many stage plays, notable ones being – Kitti Kathe (Dir B.V Karanth) Siri Sampige (Dir- S Malathi), Hayavadana (Dir – B.V Karanth), Rushyashrunga (Dir -K.M Shankarappa), Hamlet (Dir -Ashok Badardinni) and Antigone (Dir –Suresh Anagalli).

The first actress to act in a street play in Karnataka, Gowri went on to act and direct numerous street plays. She performed in street plays during the emergency protesting the center’s policy. She has collaborated with various government departments, organizations and NGO’s to direct, perform and tour all over Karnataka.

She is the founding member and first director of Bimba – a theatre school for children.

She has conducted innumerable workshops and camps all over Karnataka, the noteworthy one being a camp for the Soliga tribe, wherein she lived with the tribe children, studied their customs and rituals, learnt their language, taught them theatre, built a stage and directed the performance of a play written in their language about their life as a Soliga Tribe.

The current principal of Abhinaya Taranga, Gowri has worked with the institute for over 26 years now. She first joined as a convener of this institute in 1990. The school changed from being a Sunday School of Drama to a regular theatre school in 2003 under her leadership. Recognizing the need of the hour, she introduced the FRAME workshop to initiated the students to film and television acting.

Jagdish Raja, is a graduate member of the Communications, Advertising and Marketing Society (M.CAM), London and an Associate of Trinity College London (ATCL). He has worked in India, Europe and the US. After moving to Bengaluru in the 1970s, he began devising, writing and directing Corporate and promotional programmes for Radio and TV. As Co-founder of ART, now JAGRITI, he has directed and performed in several theatre productions. Jagdish was in The Jewel in the Crown (Granada Television) and in David Lean’s A Passage to India, is a sought after voice over artiste. You can hear him at the Nehru Planetarium, regaling you about the stars and inviting the community to be a part of Jagriti…as long as you have your your mobile switched OFF !

Kirtana Kumar is an actor, director, and filmmaker based in Bangalore. She has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the India Foundation for the Arts for her work in theatre and film. She is a trustee of the Women Artists’ Group, runs the year-long Theatre Lab for children, and is a co-founder of Infinite Souls Farm, an artists’ residency. She turned author with her collection of short stories, Bangalore Blues, published in early 2023.

Laxmi Chandrashekar is a retired professor of English. She is a theatre actor and television artist as well as an award winning translator.

Padmavati Rao is an actor, writer, director, translator and poet. As an actor she has worked in Kannada, Hindi, English, Marathi and recently even in Malayalam and Tamil cinema. Her most recent release is a film titled Miniaturist of Junagadh which won critical acclaim at international film festivals and in India. Her solo theatre show Kitchen Poems was shown at the prestigious Theatre Olympics in 2018. Padmavati is also a filmmaker, storyteller, puppet maker and puppeteer. She has authored text books on Life Skills Through Theatre and trains teachers to use theatre in the classroom. She has worked with teachers of private and government schools from around the country in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Lakshadweep and in communities in the Himalayas. She hopes to make theatre more accessible across age groups and geographies. In the last eight years her focus is on villages just outside Bangalore for a start where she endeavours to do and promote natural farming, arts and crafts.

Vijay Padaki wears two caps with equal facility. He has been active in the theatre for over sixty years. He has been a management professional for over forty five years. In addition, he is a member of Bangalore International Centre.

Vijay a psychologist and behavioural scientist by training, and founder-director of The P&P Group, a management resource centre that has programmes of policy research, consultancy and training in the areas of Organization and Institutional Development. A good part of the work of The P&P Group is devoted to the effectiveness of non-profit organizations, especially in large development programmes.

Vijay was a Founder-Trustee of Bangalore Little Theatre Foundation. He joined BLT in 1960, the year of its inception, and later served the company in many capacities. Vijay has been responsible for institutionalizing several activities of BLT, such as the annual summer workshop for newcomers to the theatre (SPOT), from which has emerged a large number of the theatre personalities in Bangalore, the History of Ideas programme of biographical plays, the Courtyard Theatre programme, and the Children’s Theatre programme, which includes the annual flagship children’s play as a partnership production to support a charity. Vijay conceived and initiated the highly successful Trainer-Training programme and the Directors Training programme in Bangalore. He has forged several international partnerships with BLT over the years. The John F. Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts in Washington invited him to serve as an advisor to the India Festival in 2011. The same year he gave the Harold Clurman lecture at the Stella Adler Studio in New York. More recently, the Ministry of Culture invited Vijay to initiate a programme of Arts and Heritage Management in India.

He has written over 50 original plays. He is the Series Editor of BLT’s monumental publications programme, bringing out 10 Volumes of plays.