Create, Develop, Destroy
September 26, 12:00PM | 206 Ingraham Hall
Presentation Details
A personal account of my journey as a theatre-maker, especially as a playwright. Looking back on my journey to understand where I stood in the cycle of ideas, research and letting go of one’s creation.
About the Speaker
Mahesh Dattani (born 1958) is a playwright, stage director, actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker, and the author of a succession of groundbreaking plays that firmly established English as a viable original medium in contemporary Indian theatre. His published works include Final Solutions and other Plays (Manas, 1994), Collected Plays (2 vols, Penguin, 2000 and 2005), and more recently, Me and my Plays (Penguin, 2014), which combines the text of two plays with authorial reflections and commentary. In 1998, Dattani won the Central Sahitya Akademi Award, one of India’s most prestigious literary awards, for Final Solutions. His plays are produced in all major Indian cities as well as cities abroad, including London, Leicester, New York, Washington DC, Sydney, Colombo, and Dubai. Select plays have also been translated and performed in Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Odiya, Assamese, and Nepali, and appear on the syllabi of numerous Indian and foreign universities, including UW-Madison. Dattani’s film “Mango Souffle” (writer and director, 2002) was screened at several international festivals, including the London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and received the best motion picture award at the Barcelona Film Festival in 2003. Another film, “Morning Raga” (writer and director, 2005) had its international premiere at the Cairo Film Festival in December that year, and won the award for best artistic contribution. The script for this film has been archived by the Academy of Motion Pictures, USA. Dattani’s recent plays include Where Did I Leave My Purdah (2012, adapted into a TV film, 2020), Gauhar (2016), Snapshots of a Fervid Sunrise (2017), Untouchable (2020), and Dance like a Goddess (2024). He lives in Mumbai city.
Website: Instagram @dattani23