Day 5

6 April 2016
Wednesday

Prithvi Theatre

Day 5 was a gala affair at Writers' Bloc 4. We had two readings on this day, with a very well known cast in each. Iron by Rona Munroe ran for almost 150 minutes but garnered excellent reactions from the audience. Disconnect by Anupama Chandrasekhar was a very young and fresh play about the Call Centres in India and was peppered with continous laughter and amazement.
Young actors and theatre professionals alike flocked to Ratna Pathak Shah's talk about The Actor and The Text. While the round of questions had to be interupted due to lack of time, her insights and thoughts remained a talking point for all attendees for the rest of the evening. Our singer-songwriter of the day, Navaneeth also got his share of listeners and new fans (read: fangirls) on the day.

Plays of the Day

7:00pm

Playwright 
Rona Munro

Director

Arghya Lahiri

Josie is visiting her mother Fay for the first time in fifteen years. She's never walked into a prison before. Fay is serving life for murder.
"Rona Munro's quietly impressive play seems simple enough on the surface, but, like her characters, it has hidden depths. It is a love story about how women love men unwisely and too well, and about the painful, twisted, sacred love between mothers and daughters." - The Guardian

Cast: Shernaz Patel, Dilnaz Irani, Meher Acharia-Dhar and Kenny Desai.
Sound Design: Kaizad Gherda
Special thanks to Faezeh Jalali

9:30pm

Playwright 

Anupama Chandrasekhar

Director 

Akarsh Khurana

Your credit card is maxed out, and you hang up the phone on Ross chasing your payments. But Ross is actually Roshan and, though the sun is shining or you, it's past midnight in is window-less call centre. With a new accent and invented backstory, bright young graduates in India are renamed and rebranded as they work to claw back the cash spent by Americans crippled by debt.

"The setting is a Chennai call centre. Most of the action takes place on this 'Illinois' floor where three young Indians, under the eye of an aging superviser, haras and cajole outstanding debtors. Chandrasekhar clearly shows how the callers and their 'marks' are victims of a fantasy-world and offers an intriguing, informative account of realities of sub-continental life." - The Guardian

Cast: Akarsh Khurana, Dilshad Edibam Khurana and others

Also in the Day,

Reading and Discussions

7:30pm

Prithvi House

The Actor and the Text

with Ratna Pathak Shah

In an interactive discussion, the actor-director discusses how the variant ways text can be interpreted by actors and how important their understanding remains to a production.

Singer Songwriter of the day

Navaneeth

M@ch L*ke S#x is an Indie band, comprised of Navaneeth-a singer songwriter and Jayesh- a guitarist and harmonica-ist. They formed the band almost by accident- while jamming during a long, arduous power cut- thank you Reliance! Much like sex they like experimenting with new sounds and styles. Their music is mostly earthy and acoustic, inspired by a longing for magical realism.