Dialogue for the Stage: Workshop by Abhishek Majumdar

Toto Funds the Arts

& the British Council Library

are pleased to offer

‘Dialogue for the Stage’

a two-day workshop for budding playwrights  

Facilitator:  Abhishek Majumdar 

Venue: British Council Library, Prestige Takt, 23 Kasturba Road Cross (Opposite Visvesvaraiah Industrial and Technological Museum), Bangalore

Dates:  5 and 6 August 2017 (Saturday and Sunday)

Timing:  10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days

Fee: Rs 3,500

(Rs 3,200 for members of the British Council Library)

Deadline for applications: 27 July

The two-day workshop will look at different kinds of dialogue-writing techniques using examples from a variety of plays. It will also look at the difference between dialogue that leaves a lot unsaid and dialogue that creates poetic exposition. Most importantly, it will work towards making playwrights aware of how they can think about dialogue – as rhetoric, argument, music and image. 

The workshop will involve writing, reading, performing and a lot of homework. 

It is important to note that the workshop will focus only on writing dialogue for the stage, not for film or television.

Participants will be required to bring their laptops and other writing implements such as pen and paper (we shall send you a list before the commencement of the workshop).

The workshop will be limited to 12 participants between the ages of 18 and 35. Applications should be sent to sarita.tfaindia@gmail.com along with a short bio-note and a few lines about why you would like to attend the workshop. 

Participants are requested to make their own arrangements for lunch. Coffee and snacks will be provided. 

About Abhishek Majumdar

Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright and theatre director based in Bangalore. He is the artistic director of the Indian Ensemble. His plays have been performed both nationally and internationally. Abhishek has trained in Delhi, Pondicherry, and Bangalore. He also is an alumnus of the London International School of Performing Arts. Abhishek has received the Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship, the Inlaks Scholarship, the Lispa Scholarship, and the Robert Bosch Arts Grant. He is a member of the Young Vic Director’s network, London and was at the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab in 2012.

Workshop on Scenography: Call for Applications

Toto Funds the Arts

& the British Council Library

are pleased to offer

‘An Introduction to Scenography’

a two-day workshop 

for budding theatre designers/playwrights/directors 

Facilitator:  Abhishek Majumdar

Venue: British Council Library, Prestige Takt, 23 Kasturba Road Cross (Opposite Visvesvaraiah Industrial and Technological Museum), Bangalore

Dates:  13 and 14 August 2016 (Saturday and Sunday)

Timing:  10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days

Fee: Rs 2,500

Last date for receipt of applications: 8 August

The workshop will provide an introduction to scenography for theatre makers. It will focus on ideas, tools and techniques that help to create an embedded visual logic and aesthetic during the process of developing a play or staging a production. It will encourage participants to think of the visual element in a play as a fundamental storytelling device, rather than as an embellishment. 

Participants will be required to bring their laptops and a few other sundry items such as cardboard, glue, scissors, etc.  (we shall send you a list before the commencement of the workshop).

About Abhishek Majumdar

Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright and theatre director based in Bangalore. He is the artistic director of the Indian Ensemble. His plays have been performed in India and abroad. Abhishek has trained in Delhi, Pondicherry, and Bangalore. He also is an alumnus of the London International School of Performing Arts. Abhishek has received the Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship, the Inlaks Scholarship, the Lispa Scholarship, and the Robert Bosch Arts Grant. He is a member of the Young Vic Director’s network, London and attended the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab in 2012.

The workshop will be limited to 10 participants between the ages of 18 and 35. Applications should be sent to sarita.tfaindia@gmail.com along with a short bio-note and a few lines about why you would like to attend the workshop. 

Participants are requested to make their own arrangements for lunch. Coffee and snacks will be provided. 

Play Reading: Parvathy Raveendran's 'The Witches'

Toto Funds the Arts

and 

British Council Library

are pleased to invite you to 

A rehearsed reading of Parvathy Raveendran’s play 

The Witches 

Directed by Abhishek Majumdar, award-winning playwright and director, the reading will be performed by Cathy Laby, Surabhi Herur, Nishant Seth, Tony Xavier, Abhijit Pakrashi, Ajay Kshatriya and Sunayna Premchander

Sound: Abhijit Pakrashi and Nishant Seth

Date and Time:  Saturday, 25 July 2015, 6.30 p.m.

Venue:  The British Council Library, Prestige Takt, 23 Kasturba Road Cross, Bangalore (Opposite Visveswaraiah Industrial and Technological Museum)

About the play

The Witches is a play in nine scenes that unfolds as a series of dream sequences—memories re-enacted in the mind of the protagonist as she confronts an intense episode of her childhood. The narrative shifts in time between the 1970s in Kerala and the present day. Exploring the themes of love and its abuse, madness and sanity, history and memory, it draws references from literature, myth, and history to negotiate these ideas, and relies on a stage design based on the game of hopscotch to play them out.

PARVATHY RAVEENDRAN is a writer and theatre enthusiast who currently teaches at Head Start Educational Academy in Bangalore. While a student at the Department of English in the University of Delhi she was awarded a Charles Wallace grant in 2010 for travel and research in the UK. Over the past years her growing interest in theatre has led her to explore various facets of theatre making—from writing and directing to nonverbal languages of performance as an actor. She looks forward to a long-term and more holistic engagement with theatre, integrating elements from her other interests such as art history and the visual arts, dance and pedagogy.