Writer's Bloc2
From over a hundred entries in six different languages, eleven playwrights were selected for the training programme. In January 2007, over a 24-day festival, their plays were premiered in Mumbai. With audiences eagerly awaiting the event coupled with major media buzz, we were sold out well in advance. Short performances in the foyer every night – all original writing; weekend workshops for kids; Q & As with the playwrights; daily newsletters on the writers; best audience review awards and staged readings of the Royal Court’s best new plays, all added to our celebration of the craft of playwriting.
Aaltoon Paaltoon (Marathi)
An exciting, unpredictable and unnerving night between two strangers. He is 23, she is 50. A night in which they are forced to confront and reexamine their social prejudices, beliefs and taboos.
Writer: Irawati Karnik
Director: Adwait Dadarkar
Producer: Awishkar
Centre of Gravity
The bond between three friends is tested through their relationship with the two exceptional women in their lives. Into the melee walks an uninvited guest: Isaac Newton. Will the original laws of attraction hold or will the chords of friendship be frayed?
Writer: Rajiv Rajendra
Director: Vikranth Pawar
Producer: Rage
Crab
Rocky polishes a pair of boots. Jojo smokes. Priya is packing up.
Zamiel is climbing, wandering, searching…
Three lives twisted in different directions because of a fourth. Grappling with a world hanging in mid-air. Locked in a world where things move sideways.
Writer: Ram Ganesh Kamatham
Director: Arghya Lahiri
Producer: Q Theatre Productions
Dreamcatcher
Two dancers confined to a hotel room.
Unforeseen riots. Untold stories. Unbearable truths.
Writer: Vijay Nair
Director: Trishla Patel and Faezeh Jalali
Producer: Rage
Epilogue
This is a universe unlike any we know. Dead men walk. Ghosts are haunted. Dreams have a terrible power. But even in this twilight place, we find signposts from our own world: Humour, deadlines, sex, stories, flatulence. And above all, the deeply transformative power of love.
Writer: Maia Katrak
Director: Rajit Kapur
Producer: Rage
Excavators
A man digs a hole into the earth. As he digs he is visited by a stream of characters- a reluctantly pregnant woman, a blind old man looking for a place to visit on a pilgrimage and a local goon who is bent on using whatever is unearthed to gain political mileage.
Writer and Director: Ajay Krishnan
Producer: Harami Theatre (Bangalore)
Mazya Vatanicha Khara-Khura (Marathi)
An established director and a struggling writer unravel the private life of two actors and in the process discover their own truth.
Writer: Manaswini Lata RavindraDirector: Satish Manwar
Producer: Lalit Mumbai
Poornaviram (Marathi)
A writer and an actress, both having suspended pasts, share an apartment in Mumbai. She is strong willed with a resilient spirit and he is a tired soul who has almost given up the fight with life. Together they seek to resolve themselves.
Writer: Sachin Kundalkar
Director: Mohit Takalkar
Producer: Asakta (Pune)
The Edge
In a dark corner of a dilapidated old building in Kolkata, a woman waits to meet her destiny, as a city has an unexpected tryst with terror…
Writer: Manjima Chatterjee
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Producer: Akvarious Productions
The President is Coming
In a dog-eat-dog world of young competitors, reality television and short-lived fame, this comedy explores a day in the life of ten people who will stop at nothing because THE PRESIDENT IS COMING.
Writer: Anuvab Pal
Director: Kunaal Roy Kapur
Producer: Q Theatre productions
Turel
The river bank beside a small village in Manipur is the setting for an unusual friendship between Eigya, a lonely widowed Brahmin and the younger Luwangcha. But the idyllic setting cannot mask the dark undercurrents within the community, and the troubled world outside.
Writer: Swar Thounaojam
Director: Sunil Shanbag
Producer: Arpana
“One might argue that writing can hardly be taught and Tendulkar and Shakespeare did not come out of workshops, but Writers’ Bloc is more than an attempt to tutor. It is a celebration of the threatened art of playwriting. It is a pat on the back, a word of encouragement and an opportunity to scream ‘we exist’ – just what the Indian playwright needs.
” – Pragya Tiwari, Mumbai Mirror“That Rage managed to get so many writers to participate, so many groups to produce the plays, directors and actors to work on them, is a huge achievement by itself.”
– Deepa Gehlot, HT Cafe