Theatre: Get scripted!

It’s a one-of-a-kind- theatre fest that delves deep into a playwright’s script and puts the script at the focal point of the theatrical experience.

The Rage trio — theatre persons Shernaz Patel, Rahul da Cunha and Rajit Kapur created Writers Bloc, a unique playwrights’ programme, in 2002. The fest, which is on till January 31, shows its uninhibited support to playwriting.

The process is simple yet complex — playwrights from around the country are selected by Rage’s partners, The Royal Court Theatre, London and then put through intensive training workshops, and the scripts that emerge are then staged at the Writers Bloc festival. Da Cunha explains, “The process of selecting playwrights is two-fold — we first ask writers to send sample of their work — this is merely a way for us to judge as to whether the candidate can write drama. Rajit, Shernaz and I then select 30 of the most promising candidates and send these samples of their work to the Royal Court Theatre, London for the final selection of 12.” This time those 12 include Abhishek Majumdar, Annie Zaidi, Akash Mohimen, Dharamakirti Sumant, Purva Naresh, Swetanshu Bora, Ayeesha Menon, Irawati Karnik, Sagar Deshmukh, Siddharth Kumar, Neel Chaudhuri and Shekinah Jacob.

“We started ‘Writers Bloc’ because we felt that writers needed a safe haven for the playwright — a process whereby their work could be nurtured. Lots of people are writing about relevant Indian issues. The greatest plus point is that our audiences want our issues to be tackled on the stage, and not some adapted foreign scenario,” asserts Da Cunha.