New Delhi Program
I AM A PLANT
written, directed and performed
by Varun Narain and Shaad Qureshi
TRACE (film)
by The Kaleidoscapes
R2G2 or रं दो गी दो (rang do gi do; musical storytelling)
written, directed and performed by Dhanendra Kawade
THE LOCKED DOWN HOMEMAKER
by Devamalya De
directed by Yusuf Niazi
Sravasti..........Prerna Talwar
EARTH IS OUR MOTHER, TIGER IS OUR BROTHER
by Vipul Srivastava
directed by Piyush Kumar
Hirani..........Roshni Datta
Bagha..........Tarosh Rao
HARI & RAMESH GET FLOODED IN MUMBAI
by Shashwati Talukdar
directed by Piyush Kumar
Hari..........Arnav Roy
Ramesh..........Aditya Thakur
THE LEGEND OF THE BONE SWALLOWER
by Purnima Barman and Drishana Kalita
directed by Piyush Kumar
Bone Swallower...........Nitika Goel
Stork Sister..........Kohmal Khanna
Man/Villager/Neighbor/Tiger..........Tarosh Rao
GORIYA
story and concept by Piyush Kumar
script by Bhaskar Jha with input from Shobhit Tondon
directed by Piyush Kumar
performed by Shobhit Tondon and Bhaskar Jha
THE DAY EVERYBODY DECIDED TO STOP*
by Max Wilkinson
directed by Piyush Kumar
performed by the Global EarthQuake Ensemble
*This play will be released as a short film to all registrants following the festival
Producer, India Program...................................................................Shubhra Prakash
Founder, Same Boat Theater Collective..............................Lisa Kang
Image/Sound Designer and Tech Manager.....................Shubhra Prakash
Preshow/Intermission Music......................................................Andy Aylward
Box Office Manager..............................................................................Aaron Higareda
Publicity.........................................................................................................Lynn Aylward, Pete Fitzsimmons & Bridgette Portman
Poster Design.............................................................................................Rob Dario
Program Design.......................................................................................Bridgette Portman
Founder, Same Boat Theater Collective..............................Lisa Kang
Image/Sound Designer and Tech Manager.....................Shubhra Prakash
Preshow/Intermission Music......................................................Andy Aylward
Box Office Manager..............................................................................Aaron Higareda
Publicity.........................................................................................................Lynn Aylward, Pete Fitzsimmons & Bridgette Portman
Poster Design.............................................................................................Rob Dario
Program Design.......................................................................................Bridgette Portman
About the Cast and Team
Andy Aylward (musician) is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter who is currently a Covid-19 refugee in Oakland. Hear more of his music at andyaylward.bandcamp.com/
Dr. Purnima Devi Barman (playwright, the Legend of the Bone Swallower), globally known as Stork sister or "Hargila baido” among communities, is a conservation biologist in Assam, India. Purnima is the recipient of Whitley Award 2017/Green Oscar 2017 for her crusading conservation movement to protect the highly endangered Greater Adjutant Stork. Purnima has been also conferred with Nari Shakti Purashkar by President of India which is the highest civilian award for Indian women. Purnima works with Conservation NGO Aaranyak based in Assam and she is also a member of IUCN SSC Stork Ibis and Spoonbill group. Purnima is the founder of a group called “Hargila Army” and has been tirelessly working with communities and conducting research on the storks for the last 13 years. Purnima was also awarded several other distinguished awards, including the UNDP India biodiversity Award 2016 from United Nations, the Royal Bank of Scotland RBS “Earth Hero Award” under save the species category 2016, the Balipara foundation “Green Guru Award” in 2016, and the Yamin Hazarika memorial award. Her work has given the communities a voice and she has set up a model for community conservation by building strong ownership. Purnima is also a “green teacher” diploma holder carrying gold certificate in environment education. Purnima has represented her country India by attending and presenting in many international conferences and trainings including China, Cambodia, USA, UK, France, Argentina, Mexico, Guyana, Malaysia, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand etc. She is a member of Global Women in nature network and is the honorary director of WINN India.
Roshni Datta (Hirani, Earth is Our Mother, Tiger is Our Brother) is a stage actress, dancer and choreographer. She has acted with various Bay Area theater companies and has been part of several short films, TV shows and commercials. She also likes to write poetry & create music videos. For the Earthquake event, she will be zooming in from the land of Ohlone and Chochenyo. This is the first time she is working with Same Boat and is doing two plays - Sisters Three and the Tree, directed by Amytza Maskati in the US and Earth is Our Mother, Tiger is our Brother, directed by Piyush Kumar in India. She has enjoyed the cross-cultural & cross-country experience immensely.
Devamalya De (Dev) (playwright, the Locked Down Homemaker) has been a construction professional, author, lecturer, seeker and hobbyist. He has lived on the edge : paragliding, parasailing, river rafting. He has trekked downhill in the Himalayas in winter without adequate snow gear, survived a severe snowfall with family in India-China border, currently works and lives in Bahrain. He shares his permanent home in Mumbai, India with his classical danseuse and teacher wife, an extraordinary son and a lifetime passion for books and learning. A published co-author for the Amazon.com bestseller Living a Wealthy Life, he has published articles in various Indian web media. He maintains eleven Facebook pages in different genre including short stories and diary snippets. More information and his writing can be found here.
Nitika Goel (Bone Swallower, Legend of the Bone Swallower) is a theatre artist from Delhi. She has worked with Mukhauta (the dramatics society), Saitan Theatre Group. She is currently working with Little Theatre Group Repertory. She has her interest in singing and dancing as well and is currently working on her skills.
Bhaskar Jha (playwright and performer, Goriya), a theatre enthusiast, studied English Literature from Rajdhani College, Delhi University and has been performing since his college days. He joined a media web portal as a sub-editor and also served the community radio station of Delhi University as a radio jockey for almost three years. Soon he realised theatre was his passion and promptly came back to it. He has worked with eminent theatre directors namely Kirti Jain Abhilash Pillai, Ashwath Bhatt, Rupesh Tillu, and many others. He has worked extensively with Theatre Garage Project , Red Nose Entertainment, Mumbai and Clowns Without Borders Sweden for their clown performances, Tadpole Repertory theatrical production Rakshas, Color Wheel solo production Samwadiya and many others. Apart from theatre two of his feature films Life of an Outcast, streaming on Netflix & Jhalki are running successfully across various film festivals of India. Moreover he has also conducted theatre workshops and directed plays in schools and colleges of Delhi. He has also dramatized stories for children productions namely Phanishwar Nath Renu's 'Ek Rangrez Gaon ki Bhoomika, Shivaji- The Warrior, Sita and adapted a diploma production Question Mark based on J.B Prisley's An Inspector Calls for National School of Drama. Alongside he has also written lyrics and composed music for plays like Nagmandal, Samwadiya, Romeo & Juliet etc.
The Kaleidoscapes are an eco-theatre troupe. In their film TRACE, nine dancers explore themes of global interconnectedness through movement. Filmed safely and independently during quarantine, this dance film is set to commissioned, original music. Through physical explorations of varied and meaningful local ecosystems, Trace challenges viewers to examine their own relationship to land and belonging. This trace is the beginning of a trail—one that will lead our audience to action on behalf of the planet.
Drishana Kalita (playwright, the Legend of the Bone Swallower) is a media professional with a background in PR, advertising and print journalism. After a decade of working in the corporate sector, she decided to pursue her creative calling as a freelance writer. Currently she is involved in projects that work towards social change and community development. At present she is assisting the Greater Adjutant Conservation work in Assam, as a writer and media consultant. Drishana also co-founded a puppetry group called “PuppetPeople”, that is engaged in utisiling puppetry as an awareness building medium for conservation and related topics. She hopes to write a children’s story book in the future that will use storytelling for igniting young minds towards important social awareness on topics of gender equality and bio-diversity conservation.
Dhanendra Kawade (writer and performer, R2G2 or रं दो गी दो) has been part of the theatre industry for the last 28 years and has roots in Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh. His initial training for 8 years under Dada Bangeshwar Mullick and then 3 years with Rangshri Little Ballet Troupe Bhopal made him skilled in designing, lighting and sound techniques and acting. Dhanendra has worked with many eminent theatre personalities like Prabhat Ganguly, Gul Bardhan, B. V. Karanth, Alok Chatterjee, Satyabrata Raut, Anil Chapekar, Dinesh Thakur, Astad Deboo, Rahul da-chuna, Naseeruddin Shah, Makarand Deshpande, Rajit Kapur, Neeraj Kabi, Om Katare, Nadira Zahir Babbar, and Nandita Das, among others. He formed his own theatre company called 3rd Bell Productions in 2005, now called Swangvale performing arts and social work samiti . So far Swangwale has been responsible for successfully staging 6 plays - Kahani Le Lo, Kai re…Gotya, K.T. Anna Jio to aise, Manaskhor, Baramasi, Rang Rangila Gittu Girgit. Nal –Jal, and Hil Mil Kar. He has acted in more than 60 plays along with production designing and light designing for several plays. Being a trained Chou dancer, he also conducts workshops on acting and designing. Now he is a Design Faculty in Drama School Mumbai. Dhanendra is a multitalented artist and wears various hats of an Actor, Designer, Writer, & a Director.
Kohmal Khanna (Stork Sister, Legend of the Bone Swallower) is an actor, dancer and an acting coach. Kohmal has completed her acting and theatre training from The Drama School Mumbai. She has performed at the Tagore festival- Singapore, as Bimala in the play Three Women, written and directed by Isheeta Ganguly. She has been a part of multiple plays like Rhinoceros, Sunday's with Chitra Chaitali, to name a few and has worked with various well known theatre companies/ directors in Mumbai. Apart from theatre, Kohmal has been part of a few independent short films as well. She was an acting/ Drama coach for the primary cast of Indo-British film Jungle Cry (2021). She continues to take drama workshops for young adults. She loves dancing and trains in Kathak and Jazz.
Piyush Kumar (director, Goriya; Legend of the Bone Swallower, Earth is Our Mother, Tiger is Our Brother, Hari & Ramesh Get Flooded in Mumbai) has been a theatre practitioner for 10 years who has worked in several productions including Same Boat Theater Collective (California), Hanchu-Yuei Japan, Tadpole Repertory, Black Box's Woyzeck, Barefoot, Crow, Kaivalya Plays' Unravel. He directed an ensemble production on plastic pollution called Panniarchy with the Little Theatre Group Repertory, Delhi. He has conducted several workshops and directed productions in schools and colleges of Delhi University and was a primary cast member in Arré’s web series Tathaastu and Amazon India’s TV Ad campaign Chonkpur Cheetahs.
Varun Narain (writer and performer, I Am a Plant) is a puppeteer who believes in freedom of expression, free from trauma. He teaches puppetry at the Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia University. He has performed at The Royal Tropical Theatre in Amsterdam and the Schlachthaus Theatre in Bern, where he was also the first Indian artist in residence. Varun has created and performed under the supervision of Master puppeteer Neville Tranter. ( Netherlands) and has worked as the Show running Director for the musical Jhumroo at The Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon. He is presently involved with various art projects which focus on sustainability and climate change.
Yusuf Niazi (director, the Locked Down Homemaker) is a Theatre Director, Movement Director and Workshop Facilitator who has trained at Mountview Academy, Caspa Arts, Middlesex University and The Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s Foundry Artist Development Programme.
Shubhra Prakash (producer, Delhi program; image/sound designer; tech manager) is an artist whose work lies at the intersection of film, theatre and tech. Shubhra has served as co-producer and voiceover artist for Priya’s Shakti. She most recently co-wrote, produced and acted in an original play The Music In My Blood about Indian classical music that was seen by over a thousand audience members. She co-founded the award-winning NYC based Hypokrit Theatre Company and served as festival director of the company's South Asian International Performing Arts Festival in 2015. Previously, she wrote and directed short films including Three Dates, part of New York Indian Film Festival 2013 and Funny Faces, about women in standup comedy. Her interactive short CAST ME! a "choose your own adventure" style film/game was part of The Challenge of Diversity competition by Interlude, Games for Change and Tribeca Film Festival. Shubhra has been part of TFI Interactive Immigration Co/Lab in 2017 where she and her team created COYOTEK, a multimedia-interactive project that works as a speculative web market where immigrants can find tools to bypass the oppressive forms of surveillance put upon them. In 2018, Shubhra relocated to India to develop her next play inspired by the life of Rajeev Prakash Khare, a font designer and calligrapher of Indian scripts. She presented a digital art exhibition in New Delhi at Kaleidoscope Digital Art gallery, "Fontwala: Stone to Mobile, what remains?" which received a special segment on the Indian national TV channel and was covered by prominent press. For more info: https://sprakash.github.io/portfolio/fontwala.html
Shaad Qureshi (writer and performer, I Am a Plant) is an artist in the process of learning performing arts and believes in equality and freedom of speech. He has trained in Acting techniques from Barry John acting studio. He assisted and documented ‘Fragile Kinships’ An Art Soiree at The Embassy of Switzerland, New Delhi, 2019. He is currently working in Kingdom of Dreams as an actor on stage. He has collaborated on Dark & Delicious - a performance which brings together puppetry and acting; Science and Art; Botany and Poetry with master puppeteer Varun Narain. He is also exploring Still Photography: Urban and Rural; Portrait and Natural; Performance art both in Black and White as well as Color. He also writes poetry by processing situational reality and expressing it as couplets or verse in Hindi, Urdu and English. He recently acted in The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen an interdisciplinary collaboration in performing arts. The performance was the first experiment in an entirely online virtual collaboration and the performance was streamed by Book my show as an example of a new kind of Performance art.
Tarosh Rao (Man/Villager/Neighbor/Tiger, Legend of the Bone Swallower; Bagha, Earth is Our Mother, Tiger is Our Brother) is a performance artist based at New Delhi and has been actively involved with theatre for almost a decade now. He likes to spend his leisure time pursuing yoga and somatic movements besides teaching Mathematics for a living. He is currently learning Hindustani Vocal music and is an avid reader of newspaper and faces.
Arnav Roy (Hari, Hari & Ramesh Get Flooded in Mumbai) BIO COMING SOON
Vipul Srivastava (playwright, Earth is Our Mother, Tiger is Our Brother) is a Bangalore based Theatre Artist. He has worked with various theatre groups in Bangalore, India and Nothern California, USA. Vipul was closely associated with Bay Area Indian Theatre group, Naatak during his stay in the USA and wrote, acted and directed for the group. Vipul has been writing for stage since his college days and has written several short and full length plays. More recently, Vipul has written many short film scripts and a couple of feature film scripts. Vipul’s adaption of Dharmvir Bharti’s novel Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda was performed in Nothern California and premiered on Naatak’s you tube channel recently. His short film Locked Down A Little was short listed in shorted.in lockdown film challenge in May 2020. Vipul is an engineer by training and has a M.S. Degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. He has worked with several large multinational companies in many countries and continents. Vipul is an avid traveler and loves to explore new cultures. Many of these varied experiences find their way into his scripts.
Prerna Talwar (Sravasti, the Locked Down Homemaker) BIO COMING SOON
Shashwati Talukdar (playwright, Hari & Ramesh Get Flooded in Mumbai) is a filmmaker who makes documentary, fiction and experimental films. Her films have screened at festivals and galleries all over the world including the Busan International Film Festival, Margaret Mead Festival, Kiasma Museum of Art, Helsinki and the Whitney Biennial. She was born and raised in India, where her engagement with theatre and sculpture led to filmmaking, and a Masters degree from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. In the last few years she has come back to the world of theatre and has written and directed several short plays in Taipei, where she has been working on a cycle of surreal plays about the vagaries of historical memory. She lives between India, Taiwan and the US. For updates on her work go to: https://www.facebook.com/fournineandahalf/
Aditya Thakur (Ramesh, Hari and Ramesh Get Flooded in Mumbai) BIO COMING SOON
Shobhit Tondon (performer, Goriya) is a theatre artist, drama in education teacher and a multimedia actor. Currently, he works at an alternative education school, Kunskapsskolan. He has completed a diploma in theatre in education from Shiv Nadar University and has acquired a certificate in puppetry from UNIMA India. He has worked under the mentorship of Dadi Pudumjee and has conducted several storytelling and puppetry workshops. Shobhit has worked with more than 20 brands as an actor for endorsement purposes. He continues to work with the best of theatre fraternity in Delhi exploring a variety of classic and contemporary genres and issues. He also runs his own artist collective called Pink Door Project for young adults and children where he has had several running modules to collaborate and create plays and stories.
Max Wilkinson (playwright, the Day Everybody Decided to Stop) has been a recipient of the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, a finalist for the Papatango Prize, Theatre Uncut's Prize for Political Writing and recently, the Nick Darke Award. Max has also collaborated with the Wooster Group in NYC, The English Theatre Berlin and the British Museum as a dramaturg, and has had plays produced at Theatre 503, King’s Head Theatre, the Arcola, Paines Plough and many others across London.
A Note From Our Founder
We had some fires in California recently, sending me into my bedroom, where I sat for three weeks, rarely straying more than
a few feet from my air filter, mask nearby, windows shut. It was so big, the threat. The menace was everywhere - it had filled
the sky and was entering my body as I breathed. Prayer seemed ineffectual coming from one person, God seemed too remote.
My refuge became my laptop. From there, with the tireless help of Shubhra Prakash in New Delhi and Sidal Kekilli in London, and
the talented, dedicated Same Boat Theater Collective, I gathered the nearly 100 people who came together to "move the Earth with
our voices." Their response and enthusiasm was overwhelming, their stories and voices enlightening. I present their work to you, now, with their questions, their poetry, their stories of despair and loss, but also of faith and wonder and connection, one with another and ourselves with nature. I hope we inspire you to join us, so together our voices can heal this Earth.
--Lisa Kang, Founder, Same Boat Theater Collective
a few feet from my air filter, mask nearby, windows shut. It was so big, the threat. The menace was everywhere - it had filled
the sky and was entering my body as I breathed. Prayer seemed ineffectual coming from one person, God seemed too remote.
My refuge became my laptop. From there, with the tireless help of Shubhra Prakash in New Delhi and Sidal Kekilli in London, and
the talented, dedicated Same Boat Theater Collective, I gathered the nearly 100 people who came together to "move the Earth with
our voices." Their response and enthusiasm was overwhelming, their stories and voices enlightening. I present their work to you, now, with their questions, their poetry, their stories of despair and loss, but also of faith and wonder and connection, one with another and ourselves with nature. I hope we inspire you to join us, so together our voices can heal this Earth.
--Lisa Kang, Founder, Same Boat Theater Collective
Special Thanks
Jim Kleinmann, PlayGround, Mahesh Dattani, & our promotional sponsor, Mechanics Library.
Same Boat Theater Collective is a fiscally-sponsored participant in the PlayGround Innovator Incubator Program. We are proud partners of American Rivers, Farm Fresh to You, Friends of the Urban Forest and the World Wildlife Fund.
Same Boat Theater Collective is a fiscally-sponsored participant in the PlayGround Innovator Incubator Program. We are proud partners of American Rivers, Farm Fresh to You, Friends of the Urban Forest and the World Wildlife Fund.
