World Theatre Day 2020

Coming Soon @ Masquerade, Chennai

Masquerade presents World Theatre Day 2020

A FREE TO REGISTER, public participation event, inviting artists and theatre enthusiasts to join in celebrating World Theatre Day. The day is being celebrated for the 22nd year in Chennai by Masquerade – the performance group, ChennaI. For more details on World Theatre Day, visit: https://iti-worldwide.org/worldtheatreday.html

Some may say this is not the time to celebrate. But in times of contagion and life threatening crisis like this, if we do not celebrate life, and its ONE TRUE MIRROR, live theatre, when then?

It is our responsibility and privilege as artists to exhibit freedom… Come join us, the online stage is yours.

Public Performance Event
Genre: Any that you may choose
Duration : 1 to 10+ minutes (not exceeding 12 please)
Language : Tamil, English or Mime preferably (but any that you may choose)

PS: Nothing Filmy, or anything from films. Create your own original piece. WE WANT YOU TO BE YOUR ORIGINAL YOU. We want your theatrical talent to be featured, showcased. Please do grace our World Theatre Day celebrations with YOU.

This is not an age restricted event. Young talents are allowed too. Therefore, in public interest, Strictly please, no verbal or physical violence, political, personal or COVID19 propaganda statements.

REGISTRATION & PARTICIPATION FREE.
YOU CAN EVEN PARTICIPATE AS A DUO OR GROUP SO LONG AS YOU’RE ON SAME SCREEN AND HANDLE

To Register CLICK HERE

Let's Play Madras on August 22nd

This Madras Day, on August 22nd, between 7 pm and 11 pm… Experience Madras like never before and showcase how Madras-savvy you are!

The Great Madras Board Game 

To Register, Click HERE

Event Description :

It’s AUGUST 22 – It’s MADRAS DAY – The Day this city was officially established as a little Trading Post off what’s today our own Marina Bay…
And we are celebrating it WITH A BOARD GAME. For Once, we produce, you are the actors, ARE YOU WILLING TO STEP UP TO THE STAGE AND PLAY?
Conceived over 12 years ago, in 2007, we’ve worked constantly on and off to get here… We’ve developed a BOARD GAME FOR YOU… THE GREAT MADRAS TRIP
How well do you know your city?
You think you’re a hard-core North Madras beast? You think the ECR and the OMR are the palm of your hands? Or are the creature that’s lost in CHENNAI without your Google Maps and GPS?
Show us, strut your knowledge of WHAT WE CALL MADRAS and you call Chennai.
BASIC GAME DESCRIPTION: You’re a traveller. We give you starting points to choose, we provide you the destination based on the origin. And you have to get there. You roll the dice, you strategise the route using modes of city transport we provide and a certain amount of resources to use. As you (and your partner – did we not say it’s a team of two game ? Oh my !!) explore the city, you’d come across challenges we pose (after all Mario and Luigi can’t get to Super Mario Central without challenges and obstacles, can they?). This is going to test your knowledge of Trivia and Heritage as well as the HISTORY OF THIS MARVELLOUS MADRAS… and of course, what is city traffic without situations that prompt delays and stuck-ups !

SOUNDS LIKE YOUR KIND OF FUN AND CONNECT WITH MADRAS?
Sign up using the Google Form found in the link above! We’ve 3 slots of time, choose your time, come with your partner, pay your registration fee and you’re all set to Explore Madras.

WE ARE GAME, ARE YOU? LETS PLAY MADRAS….on THE GREAT MADRAS TRIP – 22nd AUGUST, 2019 (THURSDAY). 

World Theatre Day 2019 - Presenting ANTIGONE...

We're excited. It's another WORLD THEATRE DAY. But for us it's not just another WTD this 2019. This is our 21st WTD celebrations, which we started back in 1998. And this WTD, on March 27, we fructify with our long-cherished production - ANTIGONE - adapted, devised and scripted putting together multiple sources that include but not limited to Sophocles, Hölderlin and Brecht...

The universality and contemporaneity of ANTIGONE is undeniable, and is resonant in today's war-torn, strife-ridden world as well as India, as ever.

EVENT: Performance of ANTIGONE
Medium: Theatre performance
Language: ENGLISH
Duration: 70 minutes
Date: 27 MARCH, 2019 (one performance only on its premiere)
Venue: ALLIANCE FRANCAISE DE MADRAS, Chennai, India

Stay tuned here as well as here for further details...

My last Blog for 2007... or is it already the first for 2008?

It's that time of the night. Very Janus-like. The time I start posting this is still 2007. Perhaps when it loads it is already 2008. In any case... at least am not wasting my night getting drunk or riding on the beach manically shouting "Haffy Nu Yaar" to anonymous passers-by. Writing... typing... data processing... some thoughts. So we are safely in the realm of cerebration rather than celebration. Of course, through my closed windows I could already hear infrequent sounds of wishing crackers and whizzing rockets and swishing chakkars.

I would like to place on record in this my 95th post (if only I had been a bit more active, this could well have been my 100th!), some moments from 2007 I want to retain in my heart and mind. Top of that list has to be:

the wetness in my eyes after watching Taare Zameen Par. I haven't really done that in a while.

Number 2: Some readings that have made me rethink my priorities and the reality:

Andha Yug by Dharamvir Bharati, The Life of Ramanuja, Indira Parthasarathi's Nandankatha. These have in turn driven me to do more reading on these respective topics as well as visionary religious luminaries.

Number 3: My relative inactivity in theatre. I produced and directed just one mainstream play. Am not unhappy at all about it.

Number 4: I have delineated a clear thematic focus to my fledgling novel that had gone into a huge hibernation and the beginnings of which can be still found hanging around here. I have resumed work with DARKEST BEFORE DAWN and hope to finish it in the next two years or before!

Number 5: I absolutely look forward to 2008 with the belief, faith and trust that the rest of the Border-Gavaskar trophy Down Under India-Australia on-going series is going to go India's way if only the Indian team believed in itself as much as I believe in them. Honestly, cricket has been really an electrifying talking point of 2007 as far as India is concerned. And I shall definitely do a post on Indian Cricket 2007 before my 100th post hits the deck.

Wishing you all a Happy Gregorian-reformed-Georgian New Year, given the fact that you and I may not culturally share the same new year! Wish you a Happy 2008 if you accept Gregorian Calendar... Wish you a Happy 53 if you believe the revamped Georgian Calendar. For further confusions, go here...

WORLD THEATRE DAY

Hello and welcome to Theatre Today...

A VERY HAPPY WORLD THEATRE DAY - MARCH 27 -

to all ye who visit this blog and are into theatre bashing and praising if not theatre watching!

WORLD THEATRE DAY was created in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI). World Theatre Day is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centres and the international theatre community, various national and international theatre events being organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the International Message traditionally written by a theatre personality of world stature at the invitation of the International Theatre Institute.

Usually at Masquerade we celebrate World Theatre Day by doing an extended weekend of silly comedies just to keep people happy and laughing while we otherwise do a little more serious work through the year. But since last year we have taken to launching our new annual theatre season. This year, originally our Launch Nite for 2006-07 was supposed to be today. Due to some extenuating circumstances we have moved to April 3. So if you're interested to catch up with our event... here goes the details:

Event: Masquerade's 2006-07 Theatre Season Launch Nite

Performance: ARTIFICIAL REALITIES - a 50 minute presentation of comedies

Place: CEDARS - the specialty Mediterranean Restaurant, Kotturpuram

Time: 7.30 PM

Date: April 3, 2006

Cover Charges Rs. 250/- apply.

Theatre performance to be preceded by Drinks and followed by Specialty Buffet.

You can Call Cedars - 2447 5073 or 5585 5111 for reservation. Limited Walk-ins as this is a private and press launch.

So what have we at Masquerade this season?

• 2 Mainstream Productions
• An extended weekend of 3 full-length productions
• A festival of Short Plays
• A Festival of Youth Theatre
• A year long New Writing in Theatre program…
• Workshops, neighborhood theatre events, collaborative theatre events with schools… many more!

Right Click my title above to reach out a very unique site dedicated to Theatre. Incidentally it was also the organisation - International Theatre Institute - without whose backing and help I could not have had my theatre training in de Vaterland back in 1996. Each year a personality - a theatre personality - is chosen to represent and be awarded with prize for contribution to theatre by ITI and his/her World Theatre Day speech is published here. This year it is Víctor Hugo Rascón-Banda.

Keep doing/supporting theatre. And don't listen to the umpteen entertainment reporters in town, they just write to fill their column centimeters with sound bytes and would write anything to distort reality, depending on who feeds their next meal and washes with their next cocktail. However, there are a couple of critics still left. Thank god for small mercies. As I quote my favourite tactician - the twentieth century Kautilya - and a certain Kerpener who races F-1: Too Much Mass and Too Little Class.

And to add to that, I state, TOO LITTLE CLASS AND TOO MEDIOCRE A CRITICAL MASS!