Basically Speaking…
Thespo 11 taught us that things not going as planned is not always bad. Sneha Nair sums up the 11th year of the Premier Youth Theatre Festival.
2 venues, 4 plays, 6 workshops, an International Seminar, a free-for-all film club, an International children’s play created especially to be staged during Thespo, daily live bands and platform performances. That sums up this year’s ‘Back-To-Basics’ festival.
Somewhere along then line we realised that explaining the above as a ‘basic’ Thespo would be rather strange. So we called it Thespo 11 – Theatre Andar Baahar. And all our gift bags were recycled bags not because we had a Zero Budget Décor and Design (ZeBuDD) plan, but because we were recycling. Mumbai Mirror called us a Potluck Festival and put up a fabulous picture of us glowing in the warmth exuded by rice lights – borrowed from one of the several angelic theatre groups that added to our ZeBuDD cause. How sweet!
The Thespo 11 budget around the time of our Orientation Meetings (in July) started out as a 7 figure sum, drastically descending – almost crashing – into 6, hovering around 5 for a while but finally coming to a screeching halt somewhere in between. Of course, the festival grew, almost unaware of our accounts department’s woes. Urban Myth, an Australian theatre group that works with young adults between the ages 18 – 25 had by now created a festival of their own within Thespo, with a non-competitive entry, a collaborative 15 minute performance with 7 Aussie and 7 Indian actors and a workshop and seminar for theatre trainers. A theatre producer from Sydeny, Nell Ranney on her trip to India, stayed to do a Stage Management workshop and a performance-oriented Light and Shadow workshop that lasted over 2 weeks. Jelena Budimir, Associate Director at Chickenshed Theatre, UK contacted us two weeks before her trip to India to ask us if we would like a workshop on Decoding Shakespeare. No points for guessing. We said, that would be lovely, thank you very much.
Keeping with our theme of theatre andar-baahar, we added a set design workshop to the list and Dhanendra Kawade of Third Bell Productions stepped forward to take the reins – becoming India’s very own representative in the workshops section of the festival as the Asian Age put it.
And there was the magazine, of course. The budget and board exams affected our writers and their fancy plans but we strived on till the brochure was 80 pages. Then we were told, it’s off you guys, too expensive. 30 hours later, we went to print, all 80 pages intact and a full colour cover page.
Thus, the saga continued. The Zero Budget band event was suddenly a music festival in its own right with 5 bands of varied genres putting up a fun, uplifting setlist. Vijaya Mehta, who was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award this year, gave us a very special thank you – a Film Club that commemorated some of her best work (Plays, Tele-films and Features) in Hindi, Marathi and English.
And the perfect end to this festival that beat all odds was the Awards Night. Beginning with the tribute award to Vijaya Mehta by Anupam Kher, the evening proceeded to acknowledge and celebrate the best of youth theatre in India. Etiennee Coutinho, Juhi Babbar, Nagesh Bhosale and Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre– who had graciously agreed to be the judges this year – agreed that every play was a winner. With a never-before shared award for Outstanding Play, (Geli Ekvees Varsha and Melange), this might go down in Thespo history as a year with several landmarks.
Thespo 11 Winners:-
| CATEGORY | WINNER | PLAY |
| Outstanding Female Actor in Supporting Cast | Nandita Singh | Melange |
| Outstanding Male Actor in Supporting Cast | Entire Male Supporting Cast | Institute of Pavtalogy |
| Outstanding Female Actor | Nirvana Sawhney | Melange |
| Outstanding Male Actor | Shreyas Shah | Asylum |
| Outstanding Production Design | | Geli Ekvees Varsha |
| Outstanding Director | Alok Rajwade | Geli Ekvees Varsha |
| Outstanding New Writing | Dharmakirti Sumant | Geli Ekvees Varsha |
| Sultan Padamsee Award for Outstanding Play | | Tie between - Melange and Geli Ekvees Varsha |