Post on 10-Apr-2018
October 12th-21st OWTF strides into its 11th year at Habitat World, faithfully pursuing its vision to promote and
nurture theatre and fulfilling its commitment to audiences bringing them a pick of the best plays of the year.
Recognized as one of the oldest and the most prestigious theatre festivals, OWTF is a platform that all theatre
groups look forward to performing on. For Collegiate Dramatics, it is undeniably a much coveted event, being the
only mainstream Festival to accord a performance opportunity to their productions.
Over the years OWTF has been a catalyst that has triggered off several new and laudable theatre ventures. Our
lineup this year is an exciting and broad sweep across genres, styles, debuts, stalwarts and premieres!
Opening with a premiere of Mahesh Dattani’s new play Where Did I Leave My Purdah? directed by Lillete Dubey
and closing with Konark directed by Ramchandra Singh from Naya Theatre, the theatre company established in
1959 by the pathbreaking & legendary director Habib Tanvir, the other plays are- The Bureaucrat- A Comedy by
Anuvab Pal directed by Rahul da Cunha; The Hoshruba Repertory's Chinese Coffee directed by Danish Husain,
the NSD Repertory’s Dafa 292- based on the life and times of Saadat Hasan Manto, directed by Anoop Trevedi;
Nothing Like Lear, a devised performance based on Shakespeare’s King Lear directed by Rajat Kapoor; and
Nandita Das’s directorial debut in theatre Between The Lines.
On stage is a galaxy of theatre stars that include among others Anu Menon, Soni Razdan, Nandita Das, Lillete
Dubey,Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Atul Kumar, Danish Husain & Aamir Bashir Khan.
The Colleges finalized for this year’s Collegiate plays are- Maitreyi, Ramjas, Kirori Mal, Lady Shri Ram,
Indraprastha College for Women, SGTB Khalsa & Hansraj.
Its Playtime ! Enjoy the Fest.!
Old World Theatre Festival '12
Old World Culture was conceived as a Trust to promote the arts and thereby enrich and enhance the cultural options
available in the city. Any profits that Old World Culture makes through the year are committed to nurturing the
Performing Arts and will be used towards theatre subsidies and scholarships.
Amongst other things, Old World Culture funds the YouthReach Apprenticeship Programme, an initiative to give
children from various NGOs the opportunity to apprentice under renowned artistes.
Old World Culture
Inspired by the spirit of the famous doyens of yesteryear like Zohra Sehgal and others, this play is set in the world of theatre and cinema, against a background of 50 years of history including the Partition. It is set against the famed company theatres that performed dance dramas through the 1950s till the 80s.
Where Did I Leave My Purdah is a drama on the life and times of an actress who saw the world in her art, but ignored the sharp vicissitudes of the real world outside. Nazia is an actress who has been through four decades of performance, and seven decades of personal travails and political upheavals. She sails through life on her talents that include a bizarre and funny look at life, though at the cost of affecting the lives of those who are unfortunate to be close to her.
Playwright : Mahesh Dattani
Director : Lillete Dubey
Theatre House : Primetime Theatre Production
Cast : Lillete Dubey, Soni Razdan, Neha Dubey, Sid Makkar
Language : English
Duration : 90mins with a 10min interval
Where Did I Leave My Purdah
Oct.12 | 6:30pm & 8:30pm
2011. Not India's best year. Protest movements everywhere, the government authorities crumbling, the economy in despair, young people on Twitter making noise to change things. In the middle of all this, our hero, Raghuvir Gupta, an aging discarded colonial bureaucrat in Delhi is pulled up by his Minister for an important task. A young MTV VJ who calls himself Dishoom has launched a nationwide campaign with a catchy tune to start a massive protest called “Kapre Utaro Middle Classes”. It involves taking off pants to show unhappiness with the government. The nudity is about to occur on Janpath at the exact time our PM's convoy is supposed to pass with the visiting dignitary Nicholas Sarkozy of France. The Minister appoints Raghuvir to stop this from happening. Why is this man, a dinosaur in New India, picked to negotiate with this young hip teenage movement? Because Dishoom is Raghuvir Gupta's son.
Will Raghuvir convince his son? Or Will Kapre Utaro happen and Sarkozy witness nude India? Who's hiding what skeletons in their closets? This 1 hour 45 minute rollicking political satire, in the spirit of Yes Prime Minister meets Aap Ki Adalat, takes a laugh-out-loud look at the times we live in, through deceitful Delhi bureaucratic intrigues, backroom deals of secret corruptions, hidden pasts, the convolutions of Indian politics, and a man trying to come to terms with his own son, and eventually, himself.
Playwright : Anuvab Pal
Director : Rahul da Cunha
Theatre House : Rage Productions
Cast : Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Neil Bhoopalam, Jaswinder Singh, Prerna Chawla, Aseem Hattangady, Anu Menon
Language : English
Duration : 105mins with a 10min interval
The Bureaucrat – A Comedy
Oct.13 | 6:00pm & 8:15pm
Chinese Coffee is a play about friendship and the loss of it. Harry Levine and Jake Manheim are two friends and failed artists. Harry is an obscure novelist, and has written a third novel. He has given the manuscript to Jake for his feedback. Jake a brilliant writer, wrote two critically acclaimed short stories when 19, but a photographer now, lives modestly. Meanwhile, few months back Jake took a loan from Harry but has not returned it till date.On this particular night, Harry broke, thrown out from his job at the chic French restaurant, decides to pay a visit to Jake to recover his money. But Harry is keen on Jake's views on his new novel too. As the evening unfurls, it turns out that Jake has read the novel but pretends he hasn't. What ensues is the crux of the play. The play Chinese Coffee- both the stage and film version, originally had Al Pacino playing the pivotal role and the movie was also directed by Al Pacino. This is the first time the play is being staged in India under license from Dramatists Play Service, Inc. New York, the copyright holder of the play.
Playwright : Ira Lewis
Director : Danish Husain
Theatre House : The Hoshruba Repertory
Cast : Aamir Bashir, Danish Husain
Language : English
Duration : 100mins with a 10min interval
Chinese Coffee
Oct.14 & 15 | 7:00pm
Society had weapons of laws but Manto had the power of literature. He had to himself the world of art, his imagination, and his words in which his artistic visions ruled. He embraced filth ridden alleyways, slums and the subaltern to find resonance in the thoughts of the mind of the other. His world was unhindered by prejudices. For his open mindedness, Manto had opened doors for the characters generally considered as social outcasts in literature. He was a visionary whose ideas still find relevance in the contemporary scenario. The play, based on the life and times of Manto, mirrors life in its truest form.
Playwright : Saadat Hasan Manto
Director : Anoop Trevedi
Theatre House : NSD Repertory
Cast : All the artists of National School of Drama, Repertory Company, New Delhi
Language : Hindi
Duration : 75mins
Dafa 292
Oct.16 & 17 | 7:00pm
Ever thought what a clown does when he is depressed?It sure is tough being a clown.Here is one who hasn't stopped crying for days...And he has plenty of reasons for it.The one he loved the most has left him and gone away… for good.Then, he is not getting any younger. In fact- he is old.But more than anything else, he is depressed because he has been forced to perform this play.He wasn't supposed to play it tonight but circumstances have forced him to do this play about a king and his daughters...Written by, what's his name- the great English writer, you know, bald... bearded- who says “thee-thou-thy”, you know...That guy, what's-his-name, “the show must go on..” guy;You know, the 16th century English writer... oh well.And now he is stuck;This clown, who has enough problems of his own,Who can't even remember the playwright's name-Now he is in a pot. He must perform.Life isn't fair…Well, no wonder he is depressed!!
Playwright : A devised performance based on Shakespeare's King Lear
Director : Rajat Kapoor
Theatre House : Cinematograph and The Company Theatre Production
Cast : Atul Kumar (show at 6:30pm)
Vinay Pathak (show at 8:30pm)
Language : English & Gibberish
Duration : 80mins
Nothing Like Lear
Oct.18 | 6:30pm & 8:30pm
Between The Lines is set in contemporary India where educated and affluent couples are caught between modernity and the traditional world. It explores the relationship between a lawyer couple, who have been married for 10 years. Shekhar is a high profile criminal lawyer while Maya, balances work and life by drafting routine contracts for a law firm. One day they accidentally end up being on opposite sides in an attempted murder case. Shekhar is the prosecutor and Maya, the defense lawyer. As they fight the case in the court, their personal life starts getting impacted.
Between The Lines peels, layer by layer, what is said and also what is often left unsaid in a couple's relationship.
Playwright : Nandita Das, Divya Jagdale
Director : Nandita Das
Theatre House : Chhoti Production Company (CPC) Pvt. Ltd
Cast : Nandita Das, Subodh Maskara
Language : English
Duration : 80mins
Between The Lines
Oct.19 & 20 | 7:00pm
Konark depicts the end of an era- of the art of stone-carving. Amongst the various temples of medieval India, the Suntemple of Konark was the very last to be built. The only temple to be created with the science of magnetic engineering, it is also known to receive the first rays of the Sun in India. The myth goes that the magnet of the shikhar of the temple was so powerful, that it helped in giving directions to the ships across the Bay of Bengal. However, no worship or ritual ever took place in the temple. This very mystery intrigued Habib Sahab to take up the play.
Going back seven hundred years in time, Utkal (modern day Orissa) was flourishing in the arts, especially that of stone carving. Vast classical style temples were being built all over India. Utkal's king Narsinghdev was a strong and an able ruler. A patron of the arts and an artist himself, he wanted to dedicate a temple to the Surya Devta in the city of Konark and call it the Suntemple. Builders and stone carvers were appointed for the herculean task from all over the country. Their number swelled to twelve hundred and they were to totally devote themselves to this task for a period of twelve years. The building of the temple did get completed within the time frame except for two vital aspects of its construction- the craftsmen were unable to fix the shikhar of the mandir and suspend the idol of the Sun God in the sanctum…
The play poses questions and throws light on Utkal's cultural ethos, its political turmoil and social aspects of the craftsmen's lives of those times.
Playwright : Jagdish Chandra Mathur
Director : Ramchandra Singh
Theatre House : Naya Theatre
Cast : Nageen Tanvir & artists of Naya Theatre Company
Language : Hindi
Duration : 115mins with a 10min interval
Konark
Oct.21 | 4:00pm & 7:00pm
Akka, Amoli, Anni is a comic-satire revolving around three characters- “Akka” the elder sister, “Amoli” the younger sister and “Anni” a young girl (domestic help), working in their house. Through the character of Anni, the play poses a stark comment on the relevance of education.
The play attempts to put under scrutiny the status quo of the education system, under which the essence of true learning is lost. Human beings have become machines which store information and replicate it whenever required. The critical and creative brain easily becomes a slave to the mechanical ways of working. The play also reflects the plight of the students under the Semester System, which follows a repetitive pattern of exams, further causing hindrance in their overall development. With Akka, Amoli, Anni, Abhivyakti aims to create a space where humanity is valued, where girls can be free from shackles of traditional domination of thought- not a feminist approach, but a basic human feeling, where one, regardless of gender, is free to desire.
College : Maitreyi College
Theatre Society : Abhivyakti
Directors : Rashi Mishra, Madhu Bhagat
Playwright : Munshi Premchand
Adaptation : Inspired by Bade Bhaisahab
Language : Hindi
Duration : 45mins
Cast : Anamika, Indu Singh, Krittika Uniyal, Meenakshi Thapa, Nidhi Goswami, Nidhi Jangra, Payal Bose, Purbita Bhakta, Ridam Arora, Riya Singh, Sakshi Sood, Shefali Chadha, Twinkle, Vrinda Pathela
Backstage & : Deepmala Tiwari, Sakshi Sood,Production Credits Shikha Mishra, Annu Yadav
Akka, Amoli, Anni
Oct.12 & 13 | 7:00pm
We are products of our thinking. Our lives are shaped by the decisions we make- part free will, part destiny. The Park traces the happenings of an eventful sunny afternoon, as it eventually turns out for three individuals, bent on getting their space. Their stories unfold, revealing their past as also mingling with their present. The reasons for their presence in the park are brought to light. The decisions that will shape their future are made.
The Park explores questions of territoriality and displacement by dramatising the conflict between these three men as each attempts to oust the other for his own preferred place.
College : Ramjas College
Theatre Society : Shunya
Directors : Shubham Bhatia, Aasheet Badlani
Playwright : Manav Kaul
Language : Hindi
Duration : 60mins
Cast : Shubham Bhatia, Gopal Verma, Wilson Joy, Pushpita Mitra, Aasheet Badlani
Backstage & : Aasheet Badlani, Kush Gupta,Production Credits Kartikeya Sharma, Ajitabh Singh,
Prashant Verma, Dhwani Kapadia
The Park
Oct.12 & 13 | 8:00pm
Sadak Paar, based on Sam Holcroft's Dancing Bears, is an unsentimental exploration of the blurred and shifting boundaries that separate victims from oppressors. Debunking any notion of a solidarity of the oppressed, the play discovers seductions of loyalty, intent and power through which young men and women counter the debasing effects of their social and economic deprivation. Through an interesting move whereby female actors enact roles of both 'boy' and 'girl' gang members, Dancing Bears underlines the fact that gender provides no refuge from the violence and exploitation that characterise intra-gang relations.
College : Kirori Mal College
Theatre Society : The Players
Adaptation & : Shalini Bhardwaj, Danish HassanDirection :
Discussants : Rupesh Sharma, Neel Sengupta
Playwright : Based on Sam Holcroft's Dancing Bears
Language : Hindi
Duration : 60mins
Cast : Upasya Goswami, Anshul Chauhan, Himani Pant, Ritu Ahuja
Backstage & : Anuj Chopra, Arpit Gupta,Production Credits Gautam Arora, Shalini Bhardwaj,
Danish Hassan, Nina Sud, Parul Bansal, Rupesh Sharma, Neel Sengupta
Sadak Paar
Oct.14 & 15 | 7:00pm
Five people queue up in a line. Waiting for what or who is never made clear, but each of them is determined to get to the front nonetheless. Using all kinds of stratagems to get ahead – some honest, some plainly clever, and some rather dubious – this static race to the top becomes a bleak metaphor of the times in which we live. And of the games we play with others and with ourselves as we teeter on the brink of chaos.
College : Kirori Mal College
Theatre Society : The Players
Adaptation : Neel Sengupta, Gautam Arora& Direction
Playwright : Israel Horowitz
Language : English
Duration : 60mins
Cast : Shardul Bhardwaj, Jasjit Singh, Sana Taneja, Rohan Ranganathan, Gautam Arora
Backstage & : Anuj Chopra, Bharat Dhawan,Production Credits Sarthak Dewan, Himani Pant,
Anshul Jain, Nina Sud, Parul Bansal, Rupesh Sharma, Neel Sengupta, Shalini Bhardwaj, Danish Hassan
Line
Oct.14 & 15 | 8:15pm
The Skeleton Woman is a modern day love story between a reclusive and eccentric writer, and his wife, intersected at many junctures, by an Inuit folk tale. The play and its characters continuously swing between past and present and fantasy and reality. The play attempts to capture the nuances of this tumultuous relationship and test the limits of the imagination of the writer. Themes of fame, love, guilt and reproach are interestingly explored in the plot.
College : Lady Shri Ram College
Theatre Society : Dramatics Society
Director : Garima Jaju
Playwright : Prashant Prakash, Kalki Koechlin
Language : English
Duration : 45mins
Cast : Saumya Deojain, Garima Jaju
Backstage & : Pooja Mohanraj, Nupur Samar,Production Credits Nishtha Pandey, Raksha Thakur.
Special thanks to Nadia Sherwani
The Skeleton Woman
Oct.16 & 17 | 7:00pm
What happens when one questions one's existence, wholeness, primal desires and life's decisions…?What happens when it's unnatural for everyone else to even notice all that…?
Four different individuals, looking beyond their individualities, try to answer their own questions by finding reasons in the absurdities life brings to them. Perhaps they will never have those questions answered or maybe they will, but they will always crave for something to satisfy them and this sometimes can make them confront life's darkest truths.
A girl who is suppressing horrid memories of her childhood is made to confront them while constantly rejecting her lover who unconditionally loves her. At another level her relationship with her absent mother takes strange routes as the mother steps out of her dysfunctional marriage to be with a struggling author who is disillusioned about his own life.
The meaning of space, definition and reality is lost here only to find their roots in chaos, vagueness and illusion.
College : Indraprastha College for Women
Theatre Society : Abhivyakti
Directors : Ritika Popli, Pallavi Manchanda
Playwright : Sarah Kane
Adaptation : Ritika Popli, Palak Bhambri
Language : English
Duration : 45mins
Cast : Akshita Khullar, Alina Ali, Mini Dixit, Surabhi Dogra
Backstage & : Taruni Gupta, Ayesha Safwi,Production Credits Pallavi Arora, Aruja Srivastava,
Divyata Gogia, Raveena
Crave
Oct.16 & 17 | 8:00pm
The play explores what counts as a marker of territorial entitlement — caste, city, region, religion? Or is it something more ephemeral?
Questions of control over place are worked out by territorial claims over property. Madan, insists that he simply wants to sit on the park bench so that he can feel the drops of water splash from his colleagues’ freshly washed hair as she dries it in the balcony across the park. Uday, is delusional after witnessing a traumatic scene of ethnic violence, yet the implications of this moment are untapped and awaits richer elaboration. Nawaz simply wants some peace to take a nap on the park bench while awaiting his son’s school examination results.
Larger questions of political displacements loom over the play as characters invoke the trauma of forcible evictions suffered by political groups as diverse as Palestinians and Kashmiris, Tibetans and adivasis.
College : SGTB Khalsa College
Theatre Society : Ankur
Director : Ayush Gupta
Playwright : Manav Kaul
Language : Hindi
Duration : 60mins
Cast : Namash Bhardwaj, Dhruv Vats, Prabhjot Singh, Firoz Khan, Saheb Kaur, Srishti Gupta
Backstage & : Mansi Sethi, Srishti Gupta,Production Credits Gurdiksha Alangh, Ritika
Chauhan, Srishti Gupta
Park
Oct.18 & 19 | 7:00pm
Ek Tha Gadha, as a political satire throws up extremely poignant pointers on power struggles and the extent of inhumanity that our leaders are ready to travel to retain their power. The comedy revolves around a Nawab, accompanied by his boot-licking advisors, darbaris and kotwal, who announce the mourning and an unprecedented gesture of a state funeral for just a donkey, misunderstood by them to be a man adored by the public! The plot takes a serious turn when they realise their mistake and scramble to fix it.
College : Hans Raj College
Theatre Society : Dramatics Society
Directors : Pranav Sachdeva, Dharmendra Kumar
Playwright : Sharad Joshi
Language : Hindi
Duration : 55mins
Cast : Dharmendra Kumar, Abhinav Anand, Aman Kashyap, Abhishek Anand, Prashant Yadav, Jiya Bhardwaj, Prem Parija, Rishabh Sood, Gaurav Tikiya, Sheetal Arora, Aishwarye Rajput, Purusharth Budhiraja, Kawal Singh, Hemant Pandey, Hansa Malhotra, Pranav Sachdeva
Backstage & : Ayushi Kumar, Ishan SoniProduction Credits
Ek Tha Gadha
Oct.18 & 19 | 8:15pm
Keval Arora
Theatre Advisor
Associate Professor at Deptartment of
English, Kirori Mal College, Keval Arora isactively involved with mentoring the work of
students in collegiate theatre since the '80s.
He is also theatre commentator and critic.
Oct.23 | Scenography Workshop facilitated by Deepan Sivaraman, Associate Professor-Performing Art, School of Culture & Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University.
Deepan Sivaraman, a director, visual artist, designer, writer and scholar, holds BA, MA, M Phil degrees in theatre and is a post graduate from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London. His PhD ‘‘Spatial Identities And Visual Language In Indian Theatre’’ from Wimbledon College of Art, London, explores the possibility of an interactive visual language in theatre alternative to word based drama. Deepan is the founding artistic director of Oxygen Theatre Company one of the most leading cutting edgy theatre groups in India. He taught scenography at University of the Arts London for 5 years. Deepan has designed and directed around 46 performances for various companies and academic institutions in India and Europe. Recipient of three META awards, his works have been part of Indian scenography national exhibit at Prague Quadrennial '11.
Oct.20 | Critique & Analysis of the staged plays by theatre mentor Neel Chaudhuri
Neel Chaudhuri, a playwright and theatre director, is the founder and the Artistic Director of
The Tadpole Repertory, a collective committed to producing original theatre in Delhi. Neel
wrote his first play, Positions in 2006 and has since written and directed eight plays, including
Taramandal, for which he received the 2010 MetroPlus Playwright Award. His most recent
play is Still And Still Moving, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre in London.
Old World Theatre Festival '12
FESTIVAL AT A GLANCE
Oct.12-13 7:00pm onwards (Hindi/45mins) by Abhivyakti, Maitreyi College & (Hindi/60mins) byShunya, Ramjas College
Oct.14-15 7:00pm onwards (Hindi/60mins) by The Players, Kirori Mal & (English/60mins) by The Players, Kirori Mal
Oct.16-17 7:00pm onwards (English/45mins) by Dramatics Society, Lady Shri Ram College & (English/45mins) by Abhivyakti, Indraprastha College
Oct.18-19 7:00pm onwards (Hindi/60mins) by Ankur, SGTB Khalsa & (Hindi/55mins) by Dramatics Society, Hans Raj College
Oct.20 7:00pm onwards Critique & Analysis of the staged plays by theatre mentor Neel Chaudhuri, Founder, Tadpole Repertory
Oct.23 10:00am onwards Scenography Workshop facilitated by Deepan Sivaraman, Associate Professor-Performing Art, School of Culture & Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University
Akka, Amoli, Anni The Park
Sadak Paar Line
The Skeleton Woman Crave
Park Ek Tha Gadha
THE BEST OF COLLEGIATE THEATRE
An Old World Culture Presentation
Oct.12 6:30pm & 8:30pm (Eng/90mins with a 10min interval) Dir.Lillete Dubey. Cast: Lillete Dubey,Soni Razdan, Neha Dubey, Sid Makkar
Oct.13 6:00pm & 8:15pm (English/105mins with a 10min interval) Dir.Rahul da Cunha. Cast: Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Neil Bhoopalam, Jaswinder Singh, Prerna Chawla, Aseem Hattangady, Anu Menon
Oct.14-15 7:00pm (Eng/100mins with a 10min interval) Dir.Danish Husain. Cast: Aamir Bashir, Danish Husain
Oct.16-71 7:00pm (Hindi/75mins) Dir.Anoop Trevedi. Cast: All artists of National School of Drama, Repertory Company
Oct.18 6:30pm & 8:30pm (English/Gibberish/80mins) Dir.Rajat Kapoor. Cast: Atul Kumar, Vinay Pathak
Oct.19-20 7:00pm (Eng/80mins) Dir.Nandita Das. Cast: Nandita Das, Subodh Maskarad
Oct.21 4:00pm & 7:00pm (Hindi/115mins with 10min interval) by Naya Theatre. Dir.Ramchandra Singh. Cast: Nageen Tanvir & artists of Naya Theatre Company
Where Did I Leave My Purdah
The Bureaucrat – A Comedy
Chinese Coffee
Dafa 292
Nothing Like Lear
Between The Lines
Konark
At Amphitheatre
W RLDO
Tickets are available at the venue and online on www.habitatworld.com
Main Plays are priced at ` 400, ` 300, ` 100 & Collegiate plays at ` 100. For more details, call 91 11 43663080/90
Habitat World at India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi - 110003
The Stein Auditorium