Welcome to Thespo 12

Welcome to Thespo 12

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
(Last line from the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams.)

Once again, not for the first time since 1999, Thespo found itself struggling to make ends meet. Team Thespo knocked on many doors and waited in numerous swanky corporate reception lobbies. We were offered a variety of items from a cup of coffee to 4,000 packets of potato chips! But no cash.

So we took a desperate leap of faith and turned to the world at large with our FRIENDS OF THESPO initiative. We first approached ex-participants, ex-volunteers and the ever dependable theatre community with a unique proposition. We offered them part ownership of Thespo for a nominal amount in exchange for a t-shirt, magazine and 2 free tickets to one of the shows. The response was reassuring. But what was overwhelming was the outpouring of support – from strangers, from one time audience members, from musicians, from theatre practitioners in foreign lands. It has been a truly humbling and energising two weeks. We are still far from the target amount. But the clock has been re-wound and we are ready to strike Twelve!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Day 2 at Thespo12 sang out loud!

On day 2 Ravi Jain continues his journey with spell bound participants at the Mask Workshop. In another part of town, Sophie Larsmon led young writers on a playwriting workshop equipped only with the day's newspapers, some blank sheets of drawing paper and markers!

Blech rocked the cafe for a whole hour with their music. But the votes for 'event of the day' went to the Fringe performance - Come To Where I Come From where audiences were treated to 3 brand new monologues by Akash Mohimen, Dwijal Mehta and Siddharth Kumar. The performance was the culmination of a very unique and 'virtual' workshop conducted by Sophie Larsmon with these writers over the last couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, Bombay traffic claimed our platform performance. The actor made record time on the sea-link only to be stuck at the infamous 'Leelavati Junction'. However, Papier Mache Petals premiered at sharp 9pm to a houseful Prithvi Theatre. The show had sold out before the festival even started and their efficient marketing team had created quite the buzz. Lots of music, beat boxing and stand up comedy guaranteed that all present had quite a few laughs!



Day 3 sees the return of young Pune theatre-wallahs with My Go(a)d Pune at 9pm tonight. The ever popular Rang return to Thespo this year at 6pm.The Fringe see the staging of Nalli Ke Kutte at 7pm followed by Jaago Jaago by our very own IIT-Bombay at 8.15pm. But the highlight of the day is the RJ workshop by RJ Neeil at 4pm at the Prthvi House where he shares trade secrets on become a successful RJ.! It's all happening at Prithvi Theatre... See you there!

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