The culturally vibrant city that it is, Ahmedabad may get a further boost as youngsters have started individual drama groups to entertain city theatre enthusiasts.
The culturally vibrant city that it is, Ahmedabad may get a further boost as youngsters have started individual drama groups to entertain city theatre enthusiasts. What's more, they are doing this by balancing their professional careers and theatre.
Curtain Call, a theatre group was formed in 2011 with the aim to attract English theatre to the city. Prashant Vanjani and Raunaq Kamdar are coming up with their own enterprises to accommodate new styles of theatre from different parts of the country.
Curtain Call was formed by six young students, four of whom are former MICA students.
Lahiri, one of the group members, says, "We will be celebrating English theatre by showing Halfway House at Natarani on April 23." He added that the aim was to bring plays that the audience can connect with and understand.
Halfway House is an English adaptation of Mohan Rakesh's eminent Hindi drama Adhe Adhure, a play considered to be a landmark in Indian theatre. While on the surface, it is a story of a family torn apart by lack of warmth, love and compassion, it also explores the universal themes of familial bonding, marriage and identity.
The group considers themselves an amateur theatre group and feels that Ahmedabad does not provide required theatre exposure. Lahiri, who is directing the play, says, "Ahmedabad is a city not traditionally associated with English theatre as compared to Mumbai or New Delhi. We all hail from different cities and have adopted it as our own, and so we are igniting a new trend."
'Ismat Apa Ke Naam' was brought to the city by Prashant Vanjani and Raunaq Kamdar. Kamdar says, "The city has a good theatre literate audience but there are no good plays shown. We are just planning to entertain and create awareness among people. We want to bring interactive theatre, stand-up comedy and a lot more to enrich the theatre culture in the city. Both of us come from a background where we were exposed to good theatre."
Vanjani, a management graduate, has studied filmmaking at the Prague Film School. He is currently writing a screenplay for a feature length film, a romantic comedy. Kamdar is a practising architect and a former Cept student.
He has also done a course in acting from the Barry John Acting Studio, Mumbai. Lined up for him is a performance with a group from California.
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