Rehearsed Reading of Swati Simha's 'The Echoing Chamber'

Toto Funds the Arts 

is pleased to invite you to

a rehearsed reading of 

 Swati Simha’s play

The Echoing Chamber 

(Winner of the Toto Award for Creative Writing 2019)

Performed by actor-singer 

Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota

  Directed by Pallavi M D            

               

                              Swati Simha                                              Pallavi M D                                     Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota

Date and Time:  Saturday 5 October 2019, 6.30 p.m.

Venue:  The British Council, Prestige Takt, 23 Kasturba Road Cross (Opposite Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum), Bengaluru

Entry Free! All are welcome.

About the play

Set in Hyderabad a year after independence, The Echoing Chamber is about suppressed collective history and memory that were central to the making of this country. The play brings together subaltern voices and allows the audience to engage in an anachronistic reflection on the consequences of failing to recollect the making of the ‘nation’ and ‘national identity’. Our self and the actor embody different experiences and are restricted from forming a cohesive identity for themselves owing to their ‘forgetfulness’ and continue to “repeat what we cannot remember”.

About the playwright

Described as one of the most exciting young playwrights to emerge from India in recent years, Swati Simha is the author of several plays, many of which have been performed. She received her Master’s from Shanghai Theatre Academy, China and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. The Echoing Chamber won her the Toto Award for Creative Writing in 2019. She was one of the playwrights commissioned for the B!rth Festival at Royal Exchange, Manchester. Her play Flypaper Trap was written under the mentorship of Royal Court Theatre at the Writer’s Bloc residency.

About the director

Pallavi M D is a singer, actor, composer, editor, sound designer and filmmaker based in Bangalore. She has a degree in Psychology, English and Journalism from Bangalore University and a degree in Hindustani classical music from the Benares University. She has won the META Best Actress award for her one-woman performance in C Sharp C Blunt, and the Karnataka State Best Playback Singer Award for her song in the film Duniya. She was recently awarded the Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for her work in the field of Bhav Sangeet.  She is keen on multidisciplinary collaborations.

Writing for Children's Picture Books

Toto Funds the Arts and Karadi Tales 

are pleased to announce a two–day workshop on 

Writing for Children’s Picture Books

Facilitator: Shobha Viswanath 

Venue: The Jamun, 521, 2^nd Main, 3^rd Block, RMV Extension 2^nd Stage, Bangalore-94

Dates: Saturday, 19 October & Sunday, 20 October 2019

Time:  10.30 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. (both days)

Fee: Rs 4,000

To write for children, you must know what children want, and more importantly, what they do not want. They hate clichés, predictable plot lines and the moral-of-the-story trope. The workshop will help participants sift through ideas to pick those viable in the book market for four-to-eight-year-olds. They will get writing prompts to start on their stories, receive one-on-one feedback from the workshop conductors on specific areas of improvement, learn how to ruthlessly edit their own work, get a taste of what it’s like to work with professional editors, and come to know the do’s and don’ts of submitting manuscripts to publishers.

About the facilitator:

Shobha Viswanath is the co-founder and publishing director of Karadi Tales Company. She has written over 25 children’s books including Little Vinayak which was on the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) List of Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities.

The workshop, limited to 18 participants, is open to those between the ages of 18 and 40. To apply, send a writing sample of not more than 1000 words to manuscripts@karaditales.com with the subject line ‘Writing workshop’ by 30 September 2019. In the email, please include your full name, age, mobile number, a bio-note and 3 story ideas of not more than 50 words each (a synopsis of each idea) which you would like to work on at the workshop. 

Note to applicants

Once you are selected, we will let you know how to remit the fee. Coffee/tea will be provided over the two days, but participants will have to make their own arrangements for lunch.