September 19, 2024

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Natya Bharati celebrates 40 years of South Asian theater in the U.S.

 Natya Bharati celebrates 40 years of South Asian theater in the U.S.

Two-day theater festival in Rockville, MD, on October 5-6, features five unique plays, including performances by renowned South Asian theater groups across the U.S.

In 1984, a small yet passionate group of DC area Indian theater enthusiasts banded together and put on a play, the classic Kasturi Mrig, for local audiences. The play was performed before sold out audiences and thus the organization Natya Bharati was born with the mission to put on quality plays for the local (and beyond) diaspora audiences in the United States.

READ: Natya Bharati’s ‘Three Sisters’: An Anton Chekhov tale with a distinct ‘desi flavor’ (April 26, 2022)

Since those days, Natya Bharati has grown by leaps and bounds, performing not only locally in the Washington, DC, area but also in other states across the US. The organization has also worked with well-known theater personalities such as Amol Palekar, Sandhya Gokhale, Amrish Puri, Sunila Pradhan and Sudha Chopra, whom have directed plays using Natya Bharati talent on and off stage.

On October 5th and 6th, Natya Bharati will be celebrating its 40th anniversary with a two-day theater festival to be held in Rockville, Maryland, at the well-known F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater. The festival will present 5 unique and distinct plays, with 4 of them being performed by other South Asian theater groups and the final production being a Natya Bharati home production.

READ: Natya Bharati brings two great plays to Washington, DC, area to kick start the summer season (May 4, 2019)

The first day, from 2-7 PM, audiences will see the presentation of 3 plays: Parikrama (performed by Samanway in Hindi), The Living Doll (performed in English by Ebong Theatrix) and Sakharam Binder (performed in English by EPIC Actors’ Workshop, NJ). The second day, from 2-6 PM, audiences will get to witness 2 unique performances including the plays Raat (performed by Mandi Theater of Chicago in Hindi) and Dohri Zindagi (performed by Natya Bharati in Hindi).

Come watch and be transported to the world of theater with mesmerizing performances at Natya Bharati’s 40th Anniversary Festival. Tickets and more information about the plays are available at: https://natyabharati.org/.

Read more articles by Vikrum Mathur

Vikrum Mathur

Vikrum Mathur is a Contributing Editor for DesiMax. An actor and avid film buff who lives in Maryland, he has been writing about Indian, Hollywood and world cinema for the American Bazaar since 2015.

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