Mirage: A Dramatic Reading

The play explores the following questions: What do we see but do not say? What stops us from speaking? What do we carry to our deathbeds? What does it mean to be a witness? Mirage will be presented as a dramatic reading and incorporate elements of clowning. The play reading will be followed by a discussion between the playwright, actors and the audience. Cast Sanjeya: Shravan Baliga Dhritarashtra: Akshara Kerekoppa Duryodhana: Anand Samudre Krishna: Prachet Ebenezer Gandhari: Adrija Chakroborty Ambika: Sakshi P1: Nuhar Bansal P2: Athul Mohansingh P3: Siddharth Manohar King: Akshara Kerekoppa Keshava: Anand Samudre Ganesha: Phalguni Vittal Rao Crew Writer: Laya N Kumar Light Design: Anand Samudre Mentor: Sharanya Ramprakash About the Artists Laya N Kumar Laya Kumar has trained with groups like Indian Ensemble, IAPAR and Bhasha Centre, and with award-winning theatre-makers, including Mahesh Dattani and Gurleen Judge. She has worked as a producer on Naatak Express, a fundraiser festival that brings together over 100 artists to make short plays in 24 hours. She also works as a clown with Clowns Without Borders, India. Her writings have appeared in Hakara and QTP's The Script. She is keen on exploring how theatre can be taken to classroom settings. Shravan Baliga Shravan Baliga is a theatre artist and engineer with over a decade of experience in performance and theatre-making. He holds a Diploma in Theatre from Kalakul, a Konkani theatre repertory, and is a postgraduate of Drama School Mumbai, where he studied Theatre Making and Acting with an Inlaks - Drama School Mumbai Theatre Studentship. He has worked across languages such as Kannada, Tulu, Malayalam, Konkani, Hindi and English. His work includes Kendonians, selected for Bharat Rang Mahotsav 2022, and collaborations with artists such as Mahesh Dattani, Roshan Mathew, Padmavati Rao, Sapan Saran, Arun Lal and Christopher Ninasam. He has performed at platforms including the Prithvi Theatre Festival and continues to work across performance, theatre-making and contemporary theatre practices. Athul Mohansingh Athul Mohansingh is a performance practitioner from Kollam, Keralam. With roots in theatre, he works in alternative spaces and languages to tell stories from backyard ecology — where lifestyle, landscape, memory and time meet. He is an alumnus of National School of Drama, New Delhi and the School of Drama & Fine Arts, Thrissur. He is also a Russian Institute of Theatre Arts Fellow (Gitis) and an Inlaks Theatre Awardee. About the Festival PLAYINTERPLAY is a theatre festival with a difference. It celebrates 50 years of the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, bringing together its theatre awardees and scholars to show their work, share their experiences, skills and learnings, and converse on matters of common interest. PLAYINTERPLAY presents plays that are new to Bengaluru. What is different, however, is that it looks back as well as forward, featuring a work of theatre that has been specially revived for the festival and readings of plays that are still to become the finished article. PLAYINTERPLAY does more: it forges connections between its constituent parts — performances, workshops, conversations and experience sharing — emphasising the interplay between thought, learning and practice. See the plays! Apply for the workshops! Join the conversations! Soak in the magic of theatre. About the Artistic Director Anmol Vellani is the founder and former executive director of India Foundation for the Arts