SAIIER Annual Report 2014-2015: Auroville Theatre Group

Auroville Sports Resource Centre		Centre for Research in the Performing Arts
Auroville Theatre Group

Introduction

The Entity::Auroville Theatre Group , founded in 1991, aims to provide Aurovilian actors, technicians, and creative talent with the opportunity to work on meaningful, challenging and thought-provoking work from around the world.

Activities of the year

This year the Auroville Theatre Group’s big production was The Merchant of Venice, one of William Shakespeare’s great comedies . It has within it themes of great richness and depth including parental responsibilities, the attitude of children towards their parents, discrimination against minorities, friendship, and marriage, which we wanted to share with our audience in a traditional setting and with traditional costumes. We hoped that the mixture of Aurovilian actors and visiting artists would let both groups learn together, work together and inspire each other.

The Merchant of Venice was performed on January 21, 22 and 23, 2015 at the Visitor's Centre in Auroville. Jill was the director. A cast of fifteen people worked for five months (September through January) rehearsing at the CRIPA rehearsal hall four times a week, and then at the Visitors Centre for the final week. The cast consisted of Aurovilians and invited artists from India, plus costume designers and light and sound crew.

Outcomes

Our three performances at the Visitor's Centre were the result of our intensive, five-month process. We hope that the audience of over 300 people, and the whole cast and crew, have benefitted and been enriched from the experience. We are working on editing a video of the event.

Reflections

Each year we grow in skills, reputation, and enthusiasm, sharing our theatre work with invited artists who come to play with us from within India as well as from abroad. As a result, many Indian actors and designers are now asking if they can work with us. We always challenge ourselves to work in unusual spaces and this year we chose the Visitor’s Centre.

Future direction

Next year we will create a dance and theatre piece for performance based on The Glass Menagerie, a well known play by American playwright Tennessee Williams. We will invite actors from Auroville as well as guest artists from India to participate.

Conclusion

Auroville is, to a degree, a hub of performing arts in India. In music, dance and theatre, we are reaching out to invite young as well as known artists to come and work with us. So far we have been happy to collaborate with theatre artists from Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi. It has been a very enriching experience.