This play is about an aged home. A home yearning for hope, buried desires, and companionship through generations. One stormy night, a couple seeks shelter in this home. They meet an Old Man there who claims to be the owner of the house. The night unfolds into discoveries of the self and desires. The couple can sense a presence in the home that sings, plays, and moves, but the presence is only fleeting. Almost like a ghost.

The play originally written by Badal Sircar in Bengali has been adapted into English and infused with Bengali Folk Music, Violin, and Movement to explore the themes of loneliness, unsaid roles of gender, desires, and the idea of emotional infidelity.

This play has been sanctioned by The Drama School Mumbai as a part of the Alumni Grant of 2022-23 and is being created under the mentorship of actor-theatremaker Sukant Goel.

Duration: 120 minutes (With a break of 10 mins)

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Direction and Music | Shimlli Basu (Also a cast member)

Shimlli Basu is an Actor-Singer-Theatre Maker. Shimlli received her training in Acting and Theatre Making from The Drama School Mumbai in the batch 2018-19. She is a trained singer and has received training in genres of Bengali Folk, Hindustani Classical Music, Western Classical, and Jazz. Shimlli works as an actor and music trainer with children and adults. She has also directed plays for institutions.

She has performed in musicals like Mahanagar Ke Jugnu (directed by Amitosh Nagpal), Jo Dooba So Paar (directed by Ajitesh Gupta and Mohit Agarwal), Jhalkari (directed by Neha Singh), Railgadi Kaison Sundar (directed by Ajitesh Gupta), Where Are You Going Little Girl (directed by Padric Lillis) and Geet Gaan Gatha (directed by Avneesh Mishra). She has been part of dramas like Rakt Kalyan (directed by Sunil Shanbag) and Chuhal (directed by Manav Kaul). She has been part of short films, ad-films and does voice work as well.

THE TEAM:

Adaptation | Anubhav Chakraborty

Anubhav works as an in-house writer for a production house in Eastern India. He has written multiple plays, short stories, and sketches for radio and tv, and has 2 web shows to his name. He's a passionate filmmaker and thespian who likes to spend his free time researching and watching football.

Set Designer | Vivek Jadhav

Vivek Jadhav is a renowned stage designer with an experience of 25 years in theatre. He has begun his journey in theatre while doing graduation in Fine Arts from J.J. School of Arts. He has worked with varied directors and styles. He has done set designing for 120 theater productions. Some of his plays are Cotton '56, Loretta, Deewar, So Many Socks, and many more. He has also received nominations for Meta Awards two times. He likes experimenting and designing different kinds of plays.

Light Design and Operations | Adi Shastri  

Adi Shastri is a filmmaker and light designer from Mumbai, who has been working in theatre since 2013. In this time he has worked with several artists including Faezeh Jalalli, Manish Choudhary, Shruti Mishra, Sujay Saple, Mandakini Goswami, and Aditi Bhagwat, among others. He has also been a crew member at Thespo (a youth theatre festival) for 6 years. He has a BA in Film and Television from Mumbai University and is currently interested in making films and creating innovative and modern plays. 

Costume Design and Textile Advisor | Matrika Bhandari 

She holds a master's in Textiles from the Royal College of Art, London. She has been researching & working within the craft sector since her undergrad at NIFT, Delhi. Her research has revolved around creating an inclusive & equitable platform for co-design between artisans and designers.

Assistant Director | Kewal Karthik

Kewal Kartik is an actor based in Mumbai. Kewal holds a Diploma in Dramatic Arts from the Madhya Pradesh School of Drama and completed a year-long internship where he created and directed several original works. Followed by a three years long professional diploma in acting from the Intercultural Theatre Institute, Singapore, which he earned by the end of the year 2021. During the span of the last 10 years He has traveled and worked as an actor for more than 40 theatre productions with various theatre groups across India, such as Rangrez Theatre Productions, Breathing Space- The Drama Company, Auroville theatre group, and many more.

Movement Director | Meghna Roy Choudhury (Also a cast member)

Meghna Roy Choudhury is a trained Bharatnatyam dancer and holds a master's degree in Physics. She was recruited at Indianostrum theatre, Pondicherry as an actor in their Therukoothu production of Tragedy of Abhimanyu. She was selected for NSD Theatre Appreciation Course 2020 and MAMI Young Critics Lab 2020. She was selected by John Britton as a mentee at IAPAR's emerging interdisciplinary theatre artists' lab, in 2020. Currently, she is associated with Theatron Entertainments Pune, and with them, she has done various plays, including Mickey, which was nominated for META awards 2020. Her play, 'Hangman's Noose Knot', was selected for Thespo 23 Auditorium Season 2 competition. She was selected as a Playwright, Assistant Director, and Performer in the international collaboration project of Thespo at Prithvi and Instabili Vaganti, Italy (Dec 2022). Apart from theatre, she has acted on screen in a Netflix original series, 'She' Season 2, and in various FTII student films. She has also been a voice actor for radio plays on Radio Mirchi.

Stage Manager | Kunal Sharma

CAST

Samridhi Dutta as The Woman

Samridhi Dutta is an Actor and Educator who graduated in English (H) from DU and is an alumnus of FTII Batch 2019. She is also an entrepreneur who runs her own brand Paperstars Ent. Where she is working on education in cinema, social work and practice in theatre.

Akassh Ghosalkar as The Man

He is an actor, writer, and director. Born in Mumbai, Akassh began working in production for films and web soon after college. He also worked as a casting assistant. He later wrote and directed a couple of independent short films. His short film Ajay, directed by Vikrant Dhote, in which he played one of the protagonists, won Best Narrative at Kashish International Film Festival.

He has worked as a Production and Stage Manager with director Faezeh Jalali for her plays, Shikhandi and 07/07/07. He has also had training in the Meisner Technique. Akash is currently working as an actor in the plays Shikhandi by Faezeh Jalali and Dry Ice by Vikram Phukan. He has worked in web shows and is pursuing his career in stage and screen acting.

Nitin Gupta as The Old Man

Nitin is an actor/screenwriter based in Mumbai. Apart from acting on stage, he has worked in theatre productions as a creative associate, assistant director, sound operator, and poster designer, with theatremakers like Sunil Shanbag, Manav Kaul, Sapan Saran, Gagan Riar, and Sukant Goel. In films, he has worked as a production assistant, a 2nd AD, a screenwriter, and an actor.

Tamara Mayela as The Spirit 1 (Violin)

Tamara is a half-Egyptian half Scottish violinist and vocalist currently based in Mumbai. She has trained in western classical music and Celtic folk. She frequently weaves the 2 together to create a unique style of playing. She has co-composed for theatre productions such as Christmas Carol and Vampire Rabbit in the UK and has played her original music in festivals throughout India and the UK.

Meghna Roy Choudhury as The Spirit 2 (Movement)

Shimlli Basu as The Spirit 3 (Vocals)

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ABOUT HARKAT:

Harkat is an international boutique arts studio with a passion for film, new media, community art spaces, and contemporary art. Based in Mumbai & Berlin, Harkat takes many forms and identities across disciplines & related creative industries. As an alternative performance & arts space, we have hosted more than 150 shows in the past year in the mediums of theatre, film, music, community projects & contemporary art. We support the new, unheard, upcoming, exciting, cutting edge, the political, the forgotten, nostalgic, melancholic, soul stirring, the beautiful & more. And that's what Harkat is. Harkat.