Sharad Sathe and Shriram Devre

Sharad Sathe, a playwright and director of Marathi Theatre in New Jersey , was at the EBC Radio studio on June 1, 2013 as my guest to the EBC Drama Club show. He was accompanied by one of his actors, Sreeram Devre. We had an long chat on Marathi Theatre, its history, its evolution and the state of Mararthi Theatre in New Jersey and North America in general. Sharad talked about his inspiration in translating and adapting western plays for the Marathi stage and the challenges he had to face in staging Marathi Theatre in USA. During the conversation, he and Sreeram also read few snippets from some of his plays. But before we started the conversation, we remembered the recently departed  film maker Rituparno Ghosh by listening to a clip from his film “The Last Lear” where Amitabh Bachhan recites from the play “King Lear” by William Shakespeare.  The audio podcast of the entire conversation is given below.

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An Open Letter from Amitava Sen

Bengali Babu Holding Hookah

Dear Sudipta,
A few weeks ago, I attended and enjoyed your one-act monologue play Banijye Basate Lakhhi, a script about Bengali absence, by and large from the world of business and commerce. It may not have had much dramatic impact on audience because of its format and contents- probably it was not intended to; but enlivened by your natural and easy acting, was interesting indeed and set the Bengali viewers on to soul searching. In that aspect it was quite effective. The subject of your play is topical and in that respect my comments although late in coming, may not have timed out or turned stale. You touched on the maladies that inflict us, discouraging us from launching a venture, aversion to risk taking, reluctance to work hard, and absence of desire to set our spirit free. All these are so very true and have triggered some thoughts in my mind. Continue reading →

Vishwamohan Bhatt

Mrittika, Inc. – A South Asian Center for Language and Heritage will celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding with a musical program on Sunday, May 19, 2013 4:00pm-8:00pm at the auditorium of the Marlboro Middle School located at 355 County Route 520 in Marlboro, New Jersey.

The highlight of the program will be Indian classical and fusion music performance by the Grammy award winner musician, Pandit Viswamohan Bhatt. The maestro is going to play his enchanting Mohan Veena (modified slide guitar) for us. It would be a privilege for us and especially our next generation to see him in person and hear him perform on this unique instrument. Pandit Bhatt will be accompanied on tabla by the Tabla wizard, Pandit Subhen Chatterjee.Time permitting, there may be a Q&A session with the celebrity artists. Continue reading →

EBC Drama Club: Episode 3

Kulraaj Anand

“Voice is something that not only an actor needs to develop, anybody who wants to communicate effectively must learn how to develop and use his or her voice”, says Kulraaj Anand, the popular host of EBC Radio. In this episode of EBC drama club, I chat with Kulraaj who talks about how one can go about developing their voice and why. He also demonstrates voice exercises and presents an improvisational piece for the audience. Enjoy the show.

Note: You may subscribe to this and other podcasts through itunes for free.

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Anandamandir is  pleased to invite nominations for the 2013 Gayatri Memorial Awards for Literary Excellence. These awards were established by Jerry GaMarsh in 2010 to honor his late wife, Gayatri GaMarsh, who was a highly talented author, artist and sculptor and a warmly regarded member of the Ananda Mandir community in NJ. Two awards are given every year, and each winner receives $500 in cash and a commemorative plaque.

The winners of 2011 awards were Gouri Datta of Massachusetts (for her creative writings in Bengali) and Tathagata Ghosh of New Jersey (for his creative writings in English). In 2012, the awards were given to Eva Khashnobish of Delhi, India (Bengali) and Bakul Banerjee of Illinois (English) and Kooheli Chatterji (English).

Authors who have published creative writings in periodicals (and websites) published in North America are encouraged to submit nominations per the guidelines given below. Third-party nominations are welcome but concurrence of the nominated authors must be obtained in advance. Continue reading →

Raag-Rang is celebrating completion of it’s 5th year
with a concert dedicated to the memory of Pt. V.G.Jog and Pt Ravi Shankar.
Date and time: Sunday, 9th June 4 pm sharp
Venue: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, Channing Hall, 50 Cherry Hill Road, Princeton, NJ 08540.

Featured musicians are :

Raag Rang Concert

Pt Barun Kumar Pal – Hansa Veena, a modified slide guitar
Ragas, Talas and compositions created by Ravi Shankar; rendered by one of the senior-most disciples of Ravi Shankar. Hansa Veena is the only instrument named and launched by Ravi Shankar. He will accompanied on the tabla by Samir Chatterjee.

Samir Chatterjee – Tabla Solo
A frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar, Samir Chatterjee will offer us a unique experience of the music of tabla – an obvious, yet new creative approach to one of the most popular percussion of the world. He will be accompanied by Shree Kedar Naphade on the harmonium. Continue reading →

Man of The Heart

In the second part of the conversation, Sudipto talks about the impact of colonialism on Lalon Phokir’s philosophy and music, about his working relationship with director Sumon Mukhopadhyay and his future projects. Please listen to the first part of the conversation from our previous post. A brief biography of Sudipto Chatterjee is also given there.

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Man of The Heart

During our second broadcast of the EBC Radio Club on EBC Radio, we had a long telephone chat with Sudipto Chatterjee, a distinguished theatre person who teaches Drama at the Loughborough University in UK. In this part of the show, Sudipto talks about how he conceived and planned his highly acclaimed one person docudrama, “Man of the Heart”, which was directed by Sumon Mukhopadhyay.  The podcast of the first part of the show is given below.

Following is a brief biography of Sudipto Chatterjee: Continue reading →

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Satinath Mukhopadhyay

Now enjoy the second part of Satyameva, performed by Satinath Mukhopadhyay and written by Sudipta Bhawmik.

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Satinath Mukhopadhyay

Couple of years ago Satinath Mukhopadhyay, the famous radio artiste read my play “Satyameva” on one of the FM radio channels in Kolkata. The play was read in two parts. Here is the podcast of the first part.

Satyameva is one of my more popular plays. This play was first produced by ECTA in Kolkata at the Sujata Sadan and was performed on stage by Sankar Ghoshal and Indranil Mukherjee. Later in USA the play was staged again and this time Pinaki Datta and I was on the stage. In Kolkata the play was produced by Theater Workshop and directed by Ashok Mukhopadhyay and was performed by Ashok  Mukhopadyay and Krishnagati Chattopadhyay. Theater Workshop produced the play as “Jodiyo Golpo”. I’ll post the second part soon.

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