Naatak Presents its 50th Production

A Grand Musical - The Knight Foundation Grant Winner

Vrindavan

Audition Date: Saturday, June 27, 2015

Audition

Dates: September 12-27, 2015

Written and

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About the Play

In 2014, Bollywood’s dream girl Hema Malini became Member of Parliament from Mathura. When visiting a widow-home in Vrindavan, she suggested that Vrindavan widows should remain in Bengal instead of coming to over-crowded Vrindavan. The uproar that followed involved many actors – NGOs, the BJP, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and Hema Malini. This incident provides the inspiration for Vrindavan, City of Widows, in which 12 feisty widows live in raucous celebration until a Bollywood actress arrives to disrupt their lives. Vrindavan is a grand musical, juxtaposing the colorful love of Radha and Krishna with the stark existence of Vrindavan widows, and told through humor and wit, the songs of Meera Bai and the gyrations of Bollywood songs. The play features spectacular sets, costumes and lights, along with live music by Nachiketa Yakkundi and his team, choreography by Guru Bandana Sen, and dance by Dipanwita Sengupta and her students at California Nupur Dance Academy. This is Naatak’s 50th play. As befits a milestone production, it will be staged on a grand scale, with much media coverage, and as many as 9 shows for a large audience. A news item on the incident that became the genesis of this play: http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/widows-from-bengal-bihar-stay-there-why-crowd-vrindavan-hema-malini-667204

Language: Hindi (with English supertitles) Run-time: 100 minutes, no intermission Children under 7 will not be admitted

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Videos

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Credits

: Sujit Saraf

Music Director: Nachiketa Yakkundi

Dance Director: Nritya Shiromoni Guru Bandana Sen

[tabgroup] [tab title='On Stage' id='t1' active='active'] [table th="0"] Vocalists[attr style="width:20%"], "Nachiketa Yakkundi, Vidya Murthy, Lakshmi Shankar Rao, Poonam Yakkundi" Organ, Anand Karve Tabla, Ashish Tare Manjira, Gandhar Tare Triangle, Poonam Yakkundi Assistant Dance Director, Dipanwita Sengupta Dancers, "Dipanwita Sengupta, Juhi Mohan, Kanchan Srivastava, Sonia Singhal, Mrina Natarajan, Mahasweta Ganguly, Nupur Goyal, Tina Cheruvelil, Renuka Adnani, Tejaswini Narayanan, Dipashreya Sur, Pooja Solanki, Reya Shah, Snigdha Chatterjee, Richa Bhattacharya, Oishika Barat" Protima Dasi, Ranjita Chakravarty Putul Dasi, Palak Joshi Meera Dasi, Roopcy Dhiman Lata Dasi, Aruna Sheth Gauri Dasi, Asmita Jain Ganga Dasi, Pratiksha Rao Jamna Dasi, Savitha Samu Saraswati Dasi, Anjali Bhaid Pinki Dasi, Neha Goyal Neela Dasi, Rajani Nair Badi Sumitra Dasi, Anjali Bhide Chhoti Sumitra Dasi, Shubhla Jotwani Anjali Madam, Sowmya Padmanabhan Bina Kumari, Vinata Karra Mishraji, "Surender Singh (Sep 13, 19, 20, 26), Ashok Vijay (Sep 12, 18, 25, 27)" Murariji, "Amit Sharma (Sep 12, 25 ,27), Shaurya Jagtap (Sep 13, 18, 19), Navjyoti Sharma (Sep 20, 26)" Sudhakaran, Vikram Ramanarayanan [/table] [/tab] [tab title='Off Stage' id='t2'] [table th="0"] Producer[attr style="width:20%"], Soumya Agastya Production Designer, Snigdha Jain Sets Director, Asheesh Divetia Props Designer, Savitha Samu Costumes Director, Soumya Agastya Marketing Director, Rajiv Nema Sets Manager, Vikas Dhurka Sets Team, "Nicole A Bryant Stephens, Michael X Stephens, Madhav Duggineni, Indranil Roychoudhury, Abhijeet Vaidya, Saurabh Jain, Rohit Dube, Prithi Yadav, Vipul Gupta, Alka Sippy, Ranjan Patra, Mansi Kothari, Harpreet Kaur, Rhitik Verma, Rohit Verma, Arun Agarwal" Props Team, "Arun Agarwal, Saurabh Jain, Rohit Dube, Vignesh Ramakrishnan, Divya Chandrasekharan" Costumes Team, "Snigdha Jain, Sonali Baheti, Harpreet Kaur, Prabha Seshadri, Ranjana Saraf, Monica Chitkara, Nrityavilash Suchandra Banerjee" Marketing Team, "Harish Agastya, Hemkumar Joshi, Surender Singh, Varun Dua" Lights, Srikar Srinath Sound, Manish Sabu Supertitles, Vineeta Singh Visual Designer, "Pragya Tiwari, Cherie Jhaveri" Stage Management, "Arun Agarwal, Rohit Dube, Saurabh Jain" Make-up, "Smita Karhade, Harpreet Kaur, Shravanti Shinde, Neeti Solanki" Event Management, Rajat Sharma Box Office, "Madhuvanthi Guruprasad, Daniel" Photography, "Swagato Basumallick, Amit Basu, Shweta Prakash" Videography, Phani Mahavrathayajula Website, Indranil Roychoudhury [/table] [/tab] [tab title='Acknowledgments' id='t3'] [table th="0"] "Knight Foundation, KQED 88.5FM, India Currents, India West, India Abroad, Brian Haines, Byron, Sonal Sabu, Bottega Designs, Anurooba Balakrishnan, Anil Khubchandani, Varun Dua" [/table] [/tab] [/tabgroup]

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SHOWTIMES

SAT Sep 12, 6 pm: Sold Out SUN Sep 13, 4 pm: Sold Out FRI Sep 18, 8 pm: VIP Sold Out SAT Sep 19, 6 pm: Sold Out SUN Sep 20, 4 pm: VIP Sold Out FRI Sep 25, 8 pm SAT Sep 26, 2 pm & 6 pm SUN Sep 27, 4 pm [/one_third][one_third]

TICKETS

Individual Tickets

General:    $22 VIP:   $32

Group Tickets (for 4+ tickets)

General Group: $20 VIP Group: $30 **Deep discounts available for 10 or more tickets. Please call 408.499.5692 or email tickets@naatak.org [/one_third][one_third last="yes"]

VENUE

Cubberly Theater, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 [/one_third] [clear]

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Tickets

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Roles

Group 1: NINE women, age 25-50* Group 2: ONE woman, age 18-22 Group 3: FOUR women, age 50-80 Group 4: THREE men, age 30-50* *NOTE: a knowledge of Hindi is NOT required for one of the women and one of the men.

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What Are We Looking For?

Fluency in Hindi, stage presence, and a sense of rhythm. Actors will not be required to sing or dance, but will work alongside professional musicians and dancers.

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Audition Details

Date: Saturday, June 27, 2015 Venue: Naatak House, 2110D Walsh Avenue, Santa Clara 1. RSVP to sujit@naatak.org. Mention previous 2. You will receive a time slot between 1 pm and 3 pm. 3. Come with a monologue (2 minutes, Hindi) that involves movement. 4. If shortlisted, you will be called back at 4 pm the same day.

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Rehearsal Schedule

July, August, and early September, three times a week at Naatak House, 2110D Walsh Avenue, Santa Clara, CA.

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Join our Production Team

Please contact soumya@naatak.org to join our production team.

Sets and Props

This play will have spectacular sets and props. Help us build them! If you don't have previous set construction experience, we will train and mentor you.

Costumes

Help us design and arrange costumes for this play. Like sets, costumes will be fanciful and imaginative, and we will train and mentor those who do not have previous experience.

Other Production Roles

We also need creative people to help us imagine lights, make-up, props, marketing, and publicity for this unique play.

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