(Click to view an audio-visual presentation of the META Festival 2009)

Produced by: Actors’ Cult Production
Language: Hindi
Duration: 2 Hours 15 Minutes (including interval)

Produced by: Akvarious Productions
Language: Hindi
Duration: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Being a writer myself, I’m programmed to strongly believe that content is king. As a producer and director, I usually select plays on the basis of strong narratives. That is, stories worth telling. When I first read this script, the era, the language, the universe fascinated me, but mostly I was affected by the lives of the characters. The process that followed was very rewarding, especially when all the elements – music, dance, performances etc – began to come together. The result is a sincere attempt to provide contemporary audiences with a window into an elegant, colorful, but almost forgotten world.

- Akarsh Khurana

SYNOPSIS
Fusing dance and dialogue, music and romance, humor and melodrama, Nautanki, the traveling folk theatre was a precursor to Bollywood. In cities and villages, people watched all night, drawn into a world of fantasy and make-believe.
When young Gulab joined the nautanki in 1931, she became the first female performer of this art & it wasn’t long before she was considered the epitome of wit and wisdom and was awarded the Padma Shri.  At the other end of the spectrum, Beni Bai catered to the elite, with the more refined baithak style. Even though they propounded a similar art form, their lifestyles and audiences differed, and somehow, within the unavoidable rivalry, a mutual respect existed.
These two women ruled the minds and hearts of a nation for years. Yet they died sad and disillusioned women when they saw their art languishing with the onslaught of cinema. Theirs is a fascinating tale of emancipation in a society that did not respect its women. Theirs is a tale of Queens, in the time of Kings.
Directed by Akarsh Khurana, the play intersperses drama with folk dance, Kathak and live singing.

NOMINEES
Best Director: Akarsh Khurana
Akarsh Khurana is the proprietor, producer and a regular director of Akvarious Productions. Professionally a feature film writer, Akarsh has been involved in theatre from a very young age. He began directing his own plays in college for intercollege festivals and Thespo, where he won the Best Director Award twice. His feature film writing credits include Krrish, U, Me aur Hum and the upcoming Anurag Basu project, Kites. He has also worked with Rohan Sippy, and was Line Producer on their recent feature The President is Coming.

Best Actor (Female): Tahira Nath
Once an advertising executive with Leo Burnett, Tahira got bitten by the theatre bug when she acted in and directed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and quit her job. A fine actress, she landed roles in A Special Bond, All About Women and got much acclaim for her portrayal of an elderly Gulab Bai (the queen of nautanki) in Afsaneh: Bai se Bioscope tak. She is now also devoting her time and marketing skills to make theatre a more lucrative space.

Best Actor (Female): Trishla Patel
Trishla Patel is a highly established actress in English, Hindi and Gujarati theatre. She started her stage career with the acclaimed Mahatma v/s Gandhi, and has worked since with senior theatre professionals like Pt. Satyadev Dubey, Naseeruddin Shah, Sunil Shanbag, Makrand Deshpande and Naushil Mehta. She has also featured in a few television serials and feature films, such as Saathiya, Bunty aur Babli and others.

Best Supporting Actor (Male): Hussain Dalal
Hussain Dalal is the youngest member of Akvarious Productions. All of 19, he started his theatre career with a couple of musicals, namely Time to Tell a Tale and Me Grandad ‘ad an Elephant. His role as Munnu in Afsaneh: Bai se Bioscope tak is his first starring role. He is also actively involved in the production process of all current Akvarious Productions.

Best Script & Best Choreography: Purva Naresh
Purva is a highly trained Kathak danseuse and an award winning short filmmaker. She has had 15 years of training in Kathak, under the tutelage of Rani Khanum, Uma Dogra and Ram Mohan Maharaj. She has been an integral part of  Akvarious Productions having collaborated on recent productions as  writer, choreographer, actress and production support. Her feature film credits include Hanuman, Kisna: The Warrior Poet and Krrish. She has written the critically lauded Afsaneh: Bai se Bioscope Tak, and has adapted stories of Ruskin Bond for A Special Bond 1 and 2.

Best Sound Design: Megha Sriram
Megha Sriram is a music graduate from Benares Hindu University. She has sung for some feature film soundtracks, including that of Manish Jha’s Anwar. She is currently working on producing an album of her own.

Produced by: Akvarious Productions
Language: English
Duration: 2 Hours (including interval)

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
I selected this play because I found the form very interesting. The idea of having five different stories which are interconnected but don’t necessarily follow a linear pattern was intriguing and challenging. While directing All About Women the main focus was on keeping things simple and as real as possible, without having to rely on any gimmicks or frills, and on giving importance to the spoken word and evoking the substance in the relationships between the characters. We also achieved a lot through a series of intense workshops. And eventually, some wonderful, gifted actresses brought this play to life.

- Hidaayat Sami

SYNOPSIS
Noted English actress Sarah Miles once said “There’s a little bit of a hooker in every woman… a little bit of a hooker and a little bit of God”, thereby confirming the fact that the journey into the female psyche can be a pretty arduous, if not confusing one. This play takes that very journey and structures its findings in an unusual way, with five life stories alternatively interweaving, which are poignant, hilarious, real, moving and ultimately all about women.

NOMINEES
Best Director: Hidaayat Sami
Hidaayat Sami has been actively involved in theatre for 18 years, during which he has been a part of almost 100 stage productions. His expansive expertise includes acting, production, light design and direction. He has worked on a regular basis with theatre stalwarts like Pt. Satyadev Dubey, Naseeruddin Shah, Sunil Shanbag, Astaad Deboo, among many others.

Best Actor (Female): Ratnabali Bhattacharjee
Ratnabali Bhattacharjee burst onto the Mumbai theatre scene in 2004, and in a very short span of time has worked with Makrand Deshpande, Rehaan Engineer, Akarsh Khurana, Sunil Shanbag and even the Commedia Dell’arte. She has also played pivotal roles in Offshore, an American film, and Mumbai Calling, a British comedy series helmed by Sanjeev Bhaskar. Her upcoming projects include Saeed Mirza’s feature film, Savdhaan Meri Jaan.

Best Actor (Female): Prerna Chawla
Prerna Chawla has managed to juggle theatre with a successful career as an accent trainer. Having worked extensively on stage and in ads, her most recent achievement was being Hrithik Roshan’s accent trainer for Anurag Basu’s film, Kites. Her recent theatre projects include Jake’s Women by Neil Simon and Proof by David Auburn.

Best Actor (Female): Nimrat Kaur
Nimrat Kaur started her career with a Kumar Sanu music video. Her theatre career started when she took home the Thespo award for Best Actress for her lead role in Steve Thompson’s Damages. She then worked with Sunil Shanbag in a couple of plays. She even bagged a supporting role in the Hollywood production of One Night with the King (starring Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole).

Best Actor (Female): Shivani Tanksale
Shivani Tanksale started acting with a wide range of theatre groups, including Ekjute,  Poor Box Productions (in The Vagina Monologues), Q Theatre Productions etc. Having done in a bit part in Escape to Taliban, she now has important roles in upcoming features – The President is Coming , Savdhaan Meri Jaan  and Mumbai Cutting. Theatrically, she also directed two successful plays in 2008 –Namak Mirch and The Shehenshah of Azeemo.

Best Stage Design: Ayaz Basrai and Payal Wadhwa
A production design graduate from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Ayaz Basrai returned to Mumbai after gathering 3 years of experience in Dubai, to set up his own studio – The Busride. Specializing in space design, Ayaz has designed various restaurants, offices and sets for advertisements, TV shows and feature films.

Payal Wadhwa also graduated from NID, a few years after Ayaz. With her ultimate aim being a degree in scenography, she came to Mumbai to gather work experience and joined The Busride. She also freelances, and has designed sets for Channel V, MTV and a couple of feature films.

Produced by: Ravivarma Kalanilayam
Language: Malayalam
Duration: 1 Hour 50 Minutes

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Three generations…
Son, Father, Grandfather…
Among them there is one Yohannan…
What is sin…? It has to be begun from the Bible itself.   It can only be begun but it is varied in the eyes of religion, individual, time and space. Yet they all are one and view spontaneous male female relationships as aberrations.
The Snake and Satan never desert us.
The suppressed sexuality of the Indians…
The mystery it creates when it spits venom…
A dialectical analysis from a land well known for political assassinations and sex abuses.
- Suveeran

SYNOPSIS
Ayussinte Pusthakam (The book of life) discovers and reconsiders the basic issues of sexuality and sin primarily raised by the novel, written by C.V.Balakrishnan. The play stands as an independent text with its dynamic but semantically loaded stream of situations. Committed only to the reality of the psychological realm, the play is a daring attempt to deconstruct the oppressive mechanism of religious orthodoxy. Symbols get fused into the totality of dramatic experience. Emotional intensity suggested through interpretative style of acting makes the play a real sight of directorial sense.

NOMINEES
Best Director & Best Lighting Design: Suveeran
Suveeran, graduated from School of Drama, Trichur, and underwent courses from school of Performing Arts, Pondichery and National School of Drama, New Delhi. Suveeran has directed 30 plays. His play, Agnium Varshavum was selected as the best drama and he was selected as the best director in the Sangeet Natak Akademi amateur theatre competition in the year 2002. In 1997, Udambadikkolam, another play directed by Suveeran was adjudged as the best drama in amateur theatre competition.

Best Script: C.V.Balakrishnan
C.V.Balakrishnan is a vibrant writer representing the post-modern era in Malayalam literature. His novels and short stories encompass the emotional issues related to  mass culture, sexual politics, fate of the marginalized and institutionalized religions. One of the most well received writers of present day Malayalam; C.V.Balakrishnan has more than 40 books to his credit. He has been writing film scripts and film criticisms too. He has won several awards including Kerala Sahitya Akademi and Kerala Film Academy Awards.

Best Stage Design: Sunil C.K
Sunil.C.K started his career as a stage designer and an actor. In his earlier years he worked with all meager groups in Malabar and got a special mention for his acting in State School Youth festival 1992. His major works include Waiting For Godot directed by S.Sunil and Premalekhanam, directed by Priyanandanan, the famous film director.

Best Costume Design: Priya
Priya hails from Annur, a village in Kannur district. She chose fashion designing as a career only because of her interest to create her own designs with the element of folk art, especially those representing Theyyam, a popular ritual dance from Kerala. She completed her diploma in fashion designing in 2004 and the play Ayussinte Pusthakam is her debut work.

Best Ensemble
Ravivarma Kalanilayam functioned as a force to reckon with in the movement to propagate the spirit of radical theatre, in the year 1967. By 2005, Ravivarma Kalanilayam founded a theatre group, which focuses entirely on facilitating theatre study and production. Peter Brook was also associated with the Samithi.

Produced by: The Company Theatre
Language: English & Gibberish
Duration: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
This play is a search in the world of Hamlet through the eyes of Clowns. The clown has fascinated me for many years and this motif appears again and again in all my work including my film work. It is through the eyes of a clown that I wanted to explore the vast world of Hamlet. The result is a comic way in which the actors have improvised the various parts of the play and yet touched upon the tragedy of the young prince.

SYNOPSIS
A bunch of clowns are putting up a show of Hamlet- they sometimes misinterpret the text, sometimes find new meanings in it, sometimes try and understand it, very often make a mess of it. They chose to use some phrases from the play and mixed it with gibberish. They even edited the text, threw out some important scenes, and made a mess of the order of things as if the pages got mixed up. But through all this, they were simply looking for the essence of Hamlet, and trying to find a context in our own.

NOMINEES
Best Director: Rajat Kapoor
Rajat is a graduate from FTII, Pune. He started his theatre career with a Delhi based theatre group Chingari. He is presently a theatre director and also an accomplished film actor and  director. 3 times National Award Winner, Rajat is also produces cinema . His latest film Mithya had shades of Hamlet as well.

Best Actor (Male): Atul Kumar
Atul is an actor and director who heads his own theatre company The Company Theatre. Presently Atul is setting up an International Theatre Residency for rigorous training and research in the countryside of Maharashtra.

Best Supporting Actor (Female): Rachel D’souza
Fairly new to theatre, this is Rachel’s first major theatre appearance. Besides acting Rachel is also involved in theatre writing, scenography and is an active member in The Company Theatre.

Best Supporting Actor (Female): Puja Sarup
Puja is a trained theatre actress from Bombay University. She has worked world over with various theatre companies and directors. Puja is constantly searching for opportunities to challenge her own skills and art form by constantly engaging in riyaaz and workshops.

Best Supporting Actor (Male): Neil Bhoopalam
Neil is a known face from Channel V where he performed as a VJ for many years. He started theatre in college and has worked with various different directors over many productions. He is also a film actor now with many new releases due this year.

Best Costume Design: Tanya Ghavri
This is Tanya’s first theatre assignment. She is otherwise a costume designer in Bollywood where she has designed and assisted in costumes for producers like Karan Johar and others.

Produced by: Sopanam
Language: Malayalam
Duration: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
A play based on the famous Kathakali story “Nalacharitham” – an interpretative extension of the puranic theme, which focuses on the life experience of an actor who is known for his role of Kali. In the epic theme, King Nala is the protagonist who gets possessed of Kali, the evil character. The text of this play provides a context in which Nata (Actor) instead of Nala is the protagonist. There is an interaction of three characters Nata, Kali and Nala. Kali has no physical existence. His presence can be manifested only through Nata (actor). When the Kathakali theme makes its renewed passage to the contemporary theatre it presents to us a thought process, which forms the very basis of the art of transformation in theatre. Is it incumbent on the part of the actor to be subservient to the role, which he enacts? Is it not the basic tenet of the art of acting that it should not be like that? The Nata (actor) in this play is a Brahmin who follows his cast prescriptions for a strictly religious life, whereas he is destined to do the role of a wicked character. When the actor encounters a situation that his fans always prefer to see him in Kali’s role, he is caught up in a predicament and he is denied of any role than that of Kali. This experience of the actor can be extended beyond the individual level, so as to reach out to the realm of life of those who are hit by the evil designs of Kali and who meet with their tragedy. The purpose here is not to probe into the erosion of values in man. The play envisages the crisis, which human life encounters and the idea, which lies integrated with the theme, highlights how such dilemma could be overcome.
-Kavalam Narayana Panikkar

SYNOPSIS
Scene I
Kali is an immoral character, invisible to all but visible to the actor and of course to the audience too. The actor is cautious to keep the character without being possessive of it. Slowly the character takes the upper hand in the process of interaction but badly hit by the reality that it can manifest only through the actor. It teaches the actor all its immoral attributes and the poor Brahmin actor turns out to be ferocious. King Nala having lost his royal sway wanders through the forest with his consort Damayanti. Kali, through the actor creates a sense of fear in Damayanti in the guise of a serpent. Actor and Kali were two entities; now they become one, then there is’threeness’, Nata, Kali and Nala made into one entity.
Scene II
The night performance is over; the actor returns home in the morning still at his wit’s end – in the obsession of Kali. His wife tries her best to keep him normal. But he finds Kali everywhere, in everyone including his wife. In a reflective mood he entreats his fans to cast him in any role other than Kali; preferably that of noble characters like Dharmaputra, but this is rejected.
Scene III
Kali instigates Nala to abandon his consort in the forest. When Nala is away, Kali makes a futile attempt to molest Damayanti. Her chastity transforms into a forest fire which threatens to annihilate Kali. Serpent Karkotaka who falls in the fire seeks Nala’s help for rescue. When saved, the serpent shows its real nature and bites Nala. The venom within Nala drives out Kali. Nala graciously allows Kali to move off on a condition that he will never disturb the virtuous.

NOMINEES
Best Director Best Choreography: Kavalam Narayana Panikkar
One of the leading exponents of the traditional and folk theatre, Kavalam Narayana Panikkar is known for his successful productions of the traditional Sanskrit plays. He belongs to Kavalam, a village in central Kerala, and is the founder of Tiruvarang the theatre unit of Sopanam. Besides being a prominent director, Panikkar is also a prolific writer with 29 plays to his credit. Avanavankadamba, Tiruvazhithan, Jabalasatyakaman, Ottayan, Arani, Thirumudi, Theyya Theyyam, Suryathanam and Karimkutty are some of the famous plays he has written. He has directed Sanskrit classics like Madhyama Vyayogam, Vikramorvashiyam, Shakunthalam, Karnabharam, Urubhangam, Swapnavasavadattam , Malavikagnimitram and Dootvakeyam. A poet of repute in native tongue, Kavalam is also an accomplished lyricist. In addition presently he is the Vice Chairman of the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi, Chairman of Kathak Kendra, New Delhi, and Chairman, Kudiyattam Kendra, Trivandrum. His contribution to theatre has brought him many awards which include the Nandikar Award and Kalidas Samman, Fellow of Kerala Sangeet Natak Akademi and Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi. His plays were featured in the Kalidas Samaroh at Ujjain and in many other festivals all over India and abroad. Awarded Padmabhushan in 2007, Tanvir Samman in 2008, and One India One People award in 2009.

Best Lighting & Best Sound Design: Harikrishnan
Harikrishnan , born in Kerala on 23rd April, 1953-associated with Sopanam productions for the last 40 years. He has directed two plays of Sopanam, Daivathar and Sakshi. He has done done lighting  for nearly 20 Sopanam productions including Sanskrit plays like Karnabharam, Madhyam Vyayog, Sakuntalam, Malavikagnimitram. He has traveled widely with Sopanam group to countries like Japan, Russia, Greece, Korea etc. He has also participated in many National Theatre Festivals like Bharat Rang Mahotsav, Nandikar Festival, Nehru Centre Festival and the like.

Best Ensemble
The Sopanam Institute, which has just completed more than 40 years, under the leadership of Panikkar has tried to explore the possibilities of bridging the gap in our present day theatre arts. Traditionally these arts mediated between the possible and the plausible. Sopanam , through a series of dramatic productions, workshops, seminars, festivals, publications, interactions has tried to discover the basic principles of theatre on performance aesthetics. Hence its commitment to Sopanasangeetham, Mohiniattam, contemporary recreations of ancient plays, dramatizations of poems, folk songs, folk tales and performances of new plays.

Produced by: Shabdaakaar
Language: Urdu
Duration: 2 Hours 35 Minutes (including interval)

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Following a Greco- Sanskrit style, (if we can call it so), Layla Majnun is an amalgam of the ideas of the playwright, the director and all the participants. It not only talks about the love between Layla and Majnun , but talks of one that transcends all human boundaries & ideas of this emotion, connecting it with the supreme power called GOD. It journeys from the concepts of Ishq-e-Majazi to Ishq-e-Haqiqi and while doing so touches upon many ideas and issues that our society needs to address even today.
Be it the status of women or the right to expression, the duties that one has towards society or the right to live, this play through its very poetic rendition brings to light all these questions very subtly and leaves a lasting impression on the minds of its audiences. In today’s world where violence seems to have become the call of the day, one can say without a doubt that Layla & Majnun have taught us the meaning of Selfless Love. And we hope that our presentation speaks to you in the same way as it has touched our lives.
-Ram Gopal Bajaj

SYNOPSIS
Layla – Majnun is retold yet again as a narrative poem and a play, tracing the lives of two young people, both hemmed in by what was around them; the people, the places and the nature of the nomadic Bedu society in the early years of the 7th Century A.D in the Middle East. The story begins with the chorus, a group of women, introducing this tale to the audience. They give a brief background of how love blossomed in the hearts of these two young people and that its passion and intensity makes people think that Queys is possessed by an evil spirit.
Next we find Layla’s parents discussing how this love between them (Queys and Layla) has brought the family nothing else but shame. Queys’s father speaks to Layla’s father who refuses this proposal. Disheartened Queys slips into melancholy. On a pilgrimage to Mecca, Majnun strikes the Kaaba and cries, ‘none of my days shall ever be free of this pain. Let me love, oh my God, love for love’s sake, and make my love a hundred times as great as it was and is!’ He runs away into the wilderness, becoming unkempt, not knowing good from evil.
Layla meanwhile is married to Ibn Salem. Two years after his  death  Layla finds Queys but, realizes that the one she loved is lost and has been replaced by a new Queys who is so much in love with the image of Layla, which  is similar to that of the supreme power – Allah. Brokenhearted she leaves Queys who has transcended this mundane life to one full of love and light and has become oblivious to Layla’s death.

NOMINEES
Best Script: Ismail Choonara & Sabir Irshad Usmani

Ismail Choonara
Ismail Choonara has worked as a research chemist, mathematics teacher and lecturer in science in UK. His short stories, poems, and other pieces, have appeared in books and journals in South Africa, U.K, U.S.A, India and Pakistan. His radio plays have been broadcast on the World Service for the B.B.C. and German Radio network.  Apart from  Yaadon Ke Bujhe Hue Savere he has also written Layla-Majnun as a verse-play in five acts and Ab Yeh Fiza Khamosh Hai  based on the mob violence in Ahmedabad which appeared in Alpjan, New Delhi in 1992 (April-June Vol. II No.2). Currently he is working on possible tableaux on Ghalib. He is also a painter.

Sabir Irshad Usmani (Translator)
Born in  India  Sabir moved to  Karachi  and then to London, working and studying part time at L.S.E. and Regent Street Polytechnic. He founded the Urdu Trust and the European Urdu Writers’ Society, of which he became General Secretary and editor of Parvaz, an Urdu monthly.   His literary works  include various articles for Kitab Numa, five parts in Sadah on Khusro and a book on the life of Moulana Mohd. Ali Johar.  He has translated  works of Ismail Choonara including plays Yaadon Ke Bujhe Huye Savere and Layla Majnun.

Best Stage Design: Aditee Biswas
A graduate from the National School of Drama with a specialization in Design and Direction, Aditee has designed several productions for eminent directors, conducted theatre workshops and directed several plays. Her play Portrait of Dora featured at the Theatre Utsav ’08. She directed Untitled with the apprentices at the NSD Repertory Company, which premiered in their Summer Theatre Festival. Presently she is involved with NSD as a visiting faculty member.

Best Lighting Design: Daulat Vaid
A graduate from National School of Drama in 1997 with a specialization in design and direction, Daulat has worked as a freelancer and visited several countries like Sri Lanka, Japan, Brazil, Kenya, France, Pakistan, Germany for various theatre projects. As a Designer & Stage Manager he has worked with various eminent theatre personalities internationally. He has been an integral part of several theatre festivals like German Theatre Festival in India, Bharat Rang Mahotsav, Russian Days in India, World Social Forum in Mumbai and in Nairobi. Among his directed works Sultan, Nirgunia, Romeo & Juliet and Mahanirvan deserve a special mention.

Best Sound Design: Rajesh Singh
A trained actor, designer, director and musician, Rajesh has won several awards and laurels for his contribution to theatre. He has done several productions with eminent directors, worked with Sahitya Kala Repertory and Shri Ram Centre Repertory as an actor and created music for several productions. He participated in Bonn Theatre Festival, Germany and Lille Theatre Festival, France as a designer. An Inlaks Scholar, presently Rajesh is completing a course in Theatre Design and Stage Management at LAMDA, London.

Best Costume Design: Amba Sanyal 
She appeared on the Delhi stage, in Heer Ranjha and in the role of Kaikeyi which she played for several years in the Ram Leela productions of Bharatiya Kala Kendra. She assisted Shanta Gandhi in designing the masks and head gear for the production of Jasma Odan for National School of Drama. She has designed costumes for various productions at the NSD and other theatre groups.

Best Actor (Male): Ejlal Ali Khan
A freelance actor who graduated from Bharatendu Natya Akademi in 2007 and has acted in various television serials, films and plays, Ejlal has worked with several eminent theatre directors like Ram Gopal Bajaj, Salim Arif and Chitrarth Singh. Presently he is involved with the serial Maharaja Ranjeet Singh in which he plays the lead.

Best Supporting Actor (Male): Banwari Taneja
An active theater actor for the past forty years, Banwari Taneja began his career under the guidance of B. M. Shah, B. V. Karanth and Om Shivpuri and went on to become a veteran actor of the Delhi stage, acting in over 100 plays. He is also a radio, television and cinema artist. He lives in Delhi.

Best Supporting Actor (Female): Kavita Verma Kundra 
Kavita’s association with theatre started at age of thirteen. A graduate in history from Patna University, she completed her masters in theatre with a specialization in Acting from National School of Drama in 1996. Having worked as an ‘A’ grade artist with the Repertory Company of NSD, she has played central parts in the works of eminent theatre directors like Shri D.R. Ankur, Mohan Mahirishi, Valentine Teplikove, Bhanu Bharti, M.K.Raina, Robin Das, Prassana and Anuradha Kapur.

Best Director: Ram Gopal Bajaj
Ram Gopal Bajaj joined the National School of Drama in 1962, then known as Asian Theatre Institute and got his diploma with a specialization in acting. As a teacher of Drama at Modern High School, New Delhi, he has to his credit 50 children plays that he produced between 1969-73. He was appointed as Reader in the Department of Indian Theatre, Punjab University, Chandigarh, 1973 and joined Department of Dramatic Arts, Punjabi University, Patiala (Punjab) as Professor and Head of the Department in 1979. 
Among his recent achievements Mr.Bajaj has to his credit the conception and organization of the first ever Bharat Rang Mahotsav 1999 (National Theatre Festival). He also conceived National Theatre Festivals for Children, christened Jashn-e-bachpan and Bal Sangam held in 1998 and 2000.
Having acted in about 36 plays with eminent Directors, directed more than 45 productions, conducted several workshops and organised many festivals, headed the NSD Repertory company between 1988-94 and served as  Director of  National School of Drama from November 1995 to September 2001, Ram Gopal Bajaj was awarded the Padma Sri by the President of India, 2003 for his immense contribution to theatre.

Produced by: Seagull Theatre
Language: Hindi & Assamese
Duration: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

Best Ensemble
Seagull Theatre was established in 1990 in Guwahati, Assam by the some NSD graduates. Seagull seeks to improve the state of Assamese theatre trough systematic regular practice and training. It runs  repertory theatre academies for children, youth and aged people, a publication wing and weekend shows at its own studio.

Produced by: aRANYA
Language: Hindi
Duration: 1 Hour 10 Minutes

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
A director’s note for my version of Shakkar Ke Paanch Daane… I don’t have too much to say in it. Unless I admit that the director, for most parts, was following the writer’s dictates.
I’ve become aware that in most of my plays, barring half of Ilhaam and all of Aisa Kehte Hain, most of the direction is done at the writing table. In the rehearsal room I’m only trying to match, as closely as possible, the actors’ visuals  with what I had imagined while writing. 
Shakkar  Ke Paanch Daane  being the first play written and directed by me, is hounded the most by the writer’s presence. Everything you see was born on the floor of my living room. Thank god for the actor who saved it from becoming an incestuous feat!   
- Manav Kaul

SYNOPSIS
Rajkumar has been requested to write a poem for a compilation to be published.
If you knew Rajkumar you’d realize the absurdity of the request.
In an hour long monologue, Rajkumar tells us about his unremarkable life in his nondescript village and the five grains of sugar – the five people – who have stood out in this drab life for reasons stranger than fiction.
The filmy mother; her poet brother Pundaleek; Raghu, the school hero; old man Radhey; and the anonymous ‘Truckwala dost’.
As Rajkumar talks, the five grains become a single life-game that he has been unknowingly playing for years……and Rajkumar realizes that everyone has a story inside them.

NOMINEES
Best Actor (Male): Kumud Mishra
Kumud is a graduate from the National School of Drama and has been acting in theatre for the past twenty years. Kumud moved to Bombay in 1995 and has been working with directors like Sunil Shanbag, Satyadev Dubey and Manav Kaul. He has also worked in films like 1971 and Sardari Begum. His prominent theatre productions include Ilhaam, Sudama Ke Chawal, Bali aur Shambhu and Cotton 56 and Poylester 84.

Best Script & Best Director: Manav Kaul
Manav Kaul Started the theatre group Aranya in 2004. He has written and directed Shakkar Ke Paanch Daane, Peele Scooterwala Aadmi, Bali Aur Shambhu, Ilhaam, Aisa Kehte Hain, Shabd Sangeet and Park. He has also worked as an actor with theatre directors like Satyadev Dubey, Sunil Shanbag & Alok Chatterjee