Toolbox Theatre
An intensive course on writing, actor tools, dramaturgy, design and direction for theatre
It's for you
It is for you if you are interested in being in front or behind the screens; telling a story, are already a theatre practitioner, an artist or anyone looking to learn / improve your skills in writing for stage, acting, the theory and practice of dramatic composition, designing and directing theatre productions.
Course
Toolbox for Theatre is an introductory technique and training course and comprises an intensive program aimed at building an introduction to the world of theatre for newcomers as well as those with limited experience and exposure to theatre.
Faculty
The program will be facilitated by some of the best teachers and trainers in the country, who will cover the various departments that come together in the world of theatre. The faculty include Puja Sarup, Anmol Vellani, Irawati Karnik, Kirtana Kumar, Vinod Ravindran, Bharavi and Sujay Saple (see teacher profiles below).
admissions open
We have officially opened admissions now – please sign up using "Register now" button below and also send us an email on info@dhurii.com to apply, with the following details:
Name, Age, Place of residence, experience in performing arts and reason / motivation for joining.
The course begins on 23rd February and admissions close on 3rd February – so please apply soon as it will take us time to process the applications.
3rd
Feb: Last Date
23rd
Feb: We Begin
8
weekends
80
hours
Puja Sarup
Puja Sarup is an award winning theatre and film actor, teacher and theatre director. She is the co-founder of Patchworks Ensemble, Mumbai and has co-directed plays like Ila, The Gentlemen's Club and Fly by Night.
She has worked in the theatre for over 15 years and has acted in plays like Hamlet -The clown prince(for which she won the META award), Sex, Morality and Censorship, All about my Mother and Grey Elephants in Denmark. She has also worked with French theatre companies like Footsbarn and Buchinger's Boots. She has studied clowning, masks and movement theatre in Helikos in Italy for three years.
The Workshop: Actor's body The participants will be initiated into a physical theatre workshop that will span movement for stage, clowning and mask work. The aim is to create body awareness in the participant to facilitate expression and communication through the body rather than through text and words.
Anmol Vellani
Anmol Vellani is the founder and former executive director of the India Foundation for the Arts, an independent philanthropic organisation. He has directed theatre productions in different languages and locations, in India and abroad, for the last 45 years. He has trained performing artists on such subjects as voice, character building and monologues. He has also used theatre methods to conduct creativity workshops for management and arts professionals.
Voice and Breath: This workshop will explore the whole physiological apparatus of voice production. Among the questions the workshop will address are: How do you protect your voice from strain and damage? How do you set your voice and discover its natural pitch? Which vocal habits inhibit the quality and fullness of your voice? How should you breathe and use your muscles and resonators to ensure effortless and strong voice projection? How do you test whether your voice is filling the space in which you are speaking? The workshop is designed to enable participants to experience dramatic improvements not only in voice production but also in speech.
Acting Basics: Actors say and do things in performance. This workshop will explore the triggers of action and speech, namely, the external and internal factors that render speaking, emoting, gesturing and moving on stage believable and meaningful. Participants will be introduced to how a character’s actions and responses are influenced by objective circumstances (space, time and obstacles, for example), personal states (both physical and mental), and subjective concerns (such as needs, desires, motives and intentions). They will also learn how action and speech are interrelated and can modify each other
Irawati Karnik
Irawati is a writer of short fiction, translator and playwright. She teaches World Theatre at the Drama School, Mumbai. Her free-lance work includes research and documentation of Indian Contemporary Art. She occasionally takes on work as an illustrator.
Her workshop aims to introduce some tools and common practices and modes of play construction. We will explore the various elements of a play and try to understand the process through which an idea becomes a play text. By examining certain excerpts from selected texts we will also try to acquire a sense of the context a play is born of and how it evolves. The workshop will attempt to provoke the imagination and encourage the creative process.
Kirtana Kumar
Kirtana Kumar is an actor, director, dramaturg and film-maker. She trained and performed for six years with The Asian-American Theatre Project at The Los Angeles Theatre Centre (LATC) and has a Master’s Degree in European Classics and American Literature. She has been the recipient of several awards both for her directorial as well as performance work.
Actor’s Tools: This module proposes to explore the fundamental tools required to be an actor for stage - Movement, Voice, Mind.
Dramaturgy: This will begin with an understanding of the evolution of dramaturgy and move to contemporary ideas about dramaturgy and explore it's role and need.
Directing for Stage: There are as many approaches to directing for stage as there are stars in the sky. Here, we will explore your approach and what it takes to be a director in the 21st century.
Vinod Ravindran
Vinod is a theatre actor and director who has worked in the theatre for over 15 years. He has written, directed and designed several productions in the last decade with both actors and dancers with a special emphasis on collaborative and devised work . His most recent works include the site specific performance titled On Living with the World; Ramanaya( as a performer in a devised play), Somewhat Like a Balloon and How Cow Now Cow a theatre production for children.
Understanding Space and Design in the Theatre: The workshop will help participants use their imagination to create theatre designs and examine how these ideas work on stage. We will aim at understanding to to use space and create stage design for a theatre production, this includes understanding the dynamics of the stage; namely space, movement(blocking), use of properties and set design
Bharavi
Bharavi has worked as a freelance technical designer, production and arts manager for over a decade. He has been the stage and production manager and technical director at Indian Ensemble, Bangalore, and currently works in a similar capacity with the Tadpole Repertory, New Delhi.
Understanding Lights: Beginners' lighting workshop: The workshop will introduce participants to theatre lighting with the aim of demystifying lighting design for stage shows. The process will involve understanding light source and shadows, as well as rigging, focusing and operating lights for performances. The workshop is aimed at participants with little or no experience in working with lights in the theatrea and aims to equip each participant with basic and rudimentary skills with lights.
Sujay Saple
Sujay Saple is Artistic Director of Shapeshift – a dance-theatre company based in Mumbai. He has choreographed 7 original works which have performed at various festivals and vital venues around India and received rave reviews. He has been an independent performer, director, designer and workshop conductor for over 15 years with more than 40 collaborative performance projects. He is a recipient of the Ministry of Culture-Government of India fellowship for performance research and practice. He has also received the Art Think South Asia (ATSA) fellowship.
The sessions will focus on performance 'making' - on thinking, devising and creating performance work from thematic ideas/concepts/texts. Using various tools and exercises from dance-theatre, the participants will be re-imagining their ideas through visual imagery, and using the performer's body to articulate these ideas in physical terms. They will explore ways of understanding the performer as one element amidst a totality of space, movement, sound, rhythm, texture, material, design, scenography, layering, and other aspects. Through individual and group exercises, they will be pushed (as performer-creators) to find radically imaginative ways of evoking/suggesting the essence of a dramatic moment. The classes will also involve improvising and creating material through emotional responses, as well as structuring and layering the material.
Get ready to create your own
With 7 wonderful teachers, 8 weekends and 80 hours of training, the course is just what you need to get started / move up in your theatre practice. So, jump in. :)