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.
