TheBismillah Khan Awards for music, dance, theatre and puppetry were given away to young and promising artistes by Sangeet Natak Akademi chairman Leela Samson on March 7.
A majority of the awards in theatre were bagged by women. Dakshina Sharma, Pakiia Bem, Anita Shabdeesh were honoured for their acting skills. The only male winner in the acting category was Danish Iqbal.

This time the Punjabi Academy’s annual drama festival was not competitive and hence two of the stalwarts of Punjabi theatre also participated. Neelam Man Singh Chowdhury came with Tagore’s story, A Wife’s Letter, adapted into Punjabi by the poet Surjit Patar.

Seema Biswas is a great actor, both on stage and screen. I remember her in the role of Nati Binodini, a play directed by Bapi Bose, during Biswas’ stint at the National School of Drama (NSD) repertory in the eighties. In the play based on the autobiography of a 19th century actress, Biswas was superb in her instinctive grasp of the artiste’s traumatic life.

The National School of Drama’s 14th Bharangam theatre festival is now in its second week. The count on the fingers of one hand the plays that will remain in memory.

NSD’s 14th Bharangam festival does not have famous names of international directors nor does it feature that many Indian great theatre persons, even so there are some exciting plays by Polish director

Was Mumtaz Mahal just a beautiful woman with whom Shah Jahan was besotted? Was she merely a wife, happy to bear children, to provide an heir for the Mughal dynasty?

The Masa Kini Theatre company of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was sponsored by the Tadpole Theatre in their Panchsheel Intimate Theatre. The play was an apt choice for the space.

This year the final year students of the National School of Drama staged two plays instead of the usual one as their farewell production.

There has been a lot of theatre this past fortnight.

Little was not impressive in the National School of Drama Repertory Company’s latest production Hamara Shahar Us Baras, directed by Kirti Jain based on a novel by Geetanjali Shree.