Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Working Title...An Intro...


WORKING TITLE's effort has been to do alternative offbeat work, with fresh voices and talent, in a sustained manner over the last ten years. The effort has also been to reach out to diverse audiences ranging from the age of 5 to 60+. Our performance venues have ranged from conventional theatres to schools and colleges, to conferences and seminars, to 5-star hotels as well as village fairs of a few thousand people.


We have performed at theatre festivals across the country, and abroad. Our endeavors have spread beyond the borders of our country to many international locales such as the World Book Fair in Frankfurt and on special invitation by the Indian Consulate in Nepal ; Lahore being the next in the pipeline.


‘Once upon a… Tiger’ is our play designed for children but has a relevant message to teens, adolescents, parents and adults alike. This play has received a lot of recognition this past year. The play was a part of the PRITHVI THEATRES’ Season for Plays for Children, and has had 56 house full shows for school students to date. It has been watched by more than 20,000 school students and their parents and teachers in Bombay alone, in addition to shows for schools at Chandigarh , the Krishanmurti Foundation’s Sahyadri School , Nalanda School , Baroda and Fountainhead School , Surat . More shows are on the cards for schools in Bangalore , Chennai and Pune in the near future.


Besides plays, we have been active in conducting theatre workshops for schools, corporates and young actors and playwrights.


The scope of workshops has ranged from basic acting to script writing to directing and has involved participants ranging from students at the junior school level to colleges to working professionals. Theatre games and exercises have a lot to offer to students and organisations by way of communication skills, team-building and pure fun! The duration of the workshops has also been quite varied, ranging from a few hours (half a day) to four days or more. This depends on the topic and content that the workshop will consist of.


MAHADEVBHAI premiered at the Prithvi Theatre Festival in November 2002, and has since completed 150 shows. The play has travelled extensively in the country in the past five years, and has also been performed at various theatre festivals such as thePrithvi Theatre Festival in Mumbai, the Rangashankara Festival in Bangalore , the Sangeet Natak Academy and National School of Drama Festivals in Delhi , The Other Festival in Chennai and many more. The year 2004 saw the premier of WORKING TITLE’S Gujarati production of the play and 2005 saw the premier of the Hindi version.


Internationally, Mahadevbhai has travelled to the Frankfurt Book Fair and Nepal upon invitation from the Indian Consulate .

In addition, there has been a special effort to reach out to young audiences and students across the country, with our work travelling to youth camps in Panchgani, AIIMS (Delhi), Delhi University, Doon School (Dehradun), Symbiosis College (Pune), CIEFL (Hyderabad), IIM (Ahmedabad and Bangalore), IISC, Centre for Environmental Education (CEE), Kanoria Centre for the Arts, Gujarat Vidhyapith, MICA, Eklavya School (all in Ahmedabad), SOS Village and Kalakshetra (Chennai), and the Krishnamurti Foundation’s schools in India (Sahyadri School, Rishi Valley School, the Valley School, The School), Nirja Modi School(Jaipur) and Mayo College among many others. And of course, WORKING TITLE has staged many, many shows for students in their native city of Mumbai .


WORKING TITLE is run by Jaimini Pathak and Nayantara Roy, both of whom have devoted their lives to the stage.


Jaimini Pathak has been director, actor, producer, playwright, columnist, workshop conductor and film actor in Mumbai for close to twenty years. Recent Film credits include Subhash Ghai’s BLACK AND WHITE and Sudhir Mishra’s HAZARON KHWAISHEN AISI


Nayantara Roy began in Bangalore as an actor and writer, in addition to having ad-films, short films and documentaries to her credit. She moved to Mumbai and is pursuing the career along the same lines.

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