“The First Leaf”, a special play for children in English, will be staged at Ranga Shankara from 26-28 August 2008 at 7.30 pm.

“The First Leaf” is a production of AHA! Ranga Shankara’s Theatre for Children initiative. Padmavati Rao, who has previously served as Assistant Director on Shankar Nag’s popular TV serial, Malgudi Days, directs the play. The translation into English from the original by Shrirang Godbole is by the director. Padmavati has also co-directed AHA!’s other production “Gumma Banda Gumma” in Kannada.

Music for “The First Leaf” is by Bhavataarini, daughter of the famous composer, Ilayaraja.

This play opened in December last year to an appreciative audience of children and adults. Till date, over 6200 children have enjoyed the play through the Deccan Herald’s Newspaper in Education programme.

“The First Leaf” tells the inspiring story of Putti, her brother Dodu and friend Chinna who live in a time of imminent environmental catastrophe, which is as real as today and looms as close as tomorrow. The three young students explore their surroundings through fantasy and fun with the new tenant in their residential complex, who breathes new meaning into all he touches and encounters. The lesson ultimately learnt is one of protecting Plant Earth.

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I have seen “The Suit”, and “1,Madhav Baug”…and recommend them to theatregoers!

(Tickets for all plays except 1, Madhav Bagh are available at Ranga Shankara
and www.bookmyshow.com. For 1, Madhav Bagh, tickets will be sold 20 mins
before each show (25 tickets per show)

Hi,

The details of four special plays to be staged at Ranga Shankara from Aug
14th to 17th are enclosed.

*The Suit and Nagamandala, directed by Neelam Mansingh*

Contemporary Indian theatre has a few proud ambassadors. Neelam Mansingh
Chowdhary is counted among the top of them. Born and raised in the UK,
Neelam studied in National School of Drama, New Delhi and has been running a
theatre company of her own called “The Company” from Chandigarh.

Apart from being invited to all the major festivals in India, Neelam is in
the forefront of Indian theatre artistes whose work is invited abroad to
much praise and awe. She is a regular on the international theatre festival
circuit and even in countries like Japan where acceptance and
appreciation are difficult and rare.

Her plays have won praise for combining western classical writing with a
performance style grounded in Punjabi aesthetics by incorporating music,
ritualistic elements and images that endeavour to communicate as strongly as
words. Her *Nagamandala *is considered to be one of Girish Karnad’s
masterpieces and Neelam Mansingh’s *Nagamandala *is regarded as the best
production of the play.

*The Whale, by Concrete Temple Theater, New York*

Adapted by Renee Philippi and Carlo Adinolfi and directed by Renee Philippi,
*The Whale *tells the tale of Captain Ahab and his maniacal pursuit of the
ever-elusive White Whale.

* **1, Madhav Baug — presented under Ranga Shankara’s “Other Voices”***

Chetan Datar’s “1 Madhav Baug” is an intimate rendition of a mother about
her son, performed by Revathi Menon. The acclaimed actor-director from
Chennai made her debut in theatre with this piece and has travelled with it
to the Jaipur Literary Festival and Hyderabad as well. “1 Madhav Baug” is
directed by Mariam Jetpurwala. The translation is by Shanta Gokhale.

I guess I conducted my first two “celebrity” interviews….first, Lillette Dubey and then, yesterday evening, Girish Karnad .

Both of them are very articulate people, and having organized my questions well, I got quite a lot of info about them, and wrote a curtain-raiser to go with this “reminder” post for Metblogs, to follow up for the earlier announcement of Girish Karnad’s new play, which is being staged today and tomorrow.

You can see the curtain raiser….

click here to see it

with my photograph of Girish, too.

Here’s another one I took of him yesterday:

This photo comes with its own funny anecdote. For the first photograph, he didn’t smile, so I said, “Just think of ‘The Wedding Album’ and smile!” At this, he looked very startled and asked, “Have you already seen the play?” “No, I said,”why?” “That’s the first line of the play!” he exclaimed. “It’s ‘Think of the wedding and smile a little!’ ”

So do go and watch the play, which promises to be intriguingly interesting! It’s at 7.30 pm both days, at Chowdiah Memorial Hall.