For quite some time now, theater practitioners have experienced a shortage of Hindi plays. Are enough plays not being written or are playwrights just struggling to get their scripts published?
Rasika and Zeeshan from Being Association feel it’s the latter. Playwrights across the country are churning out new plays but they often fail to bring it to life on stage. Mumbai-based Being Association has taken the lead in bridging this gap. Being Association was started by two National School of Drama graduates – Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, an Indian film actor, and Rasika Agashe, an acclaimed actor and director who works in Marathi and Hindi theatre. Together, they are committed to the revival and long-term success of Indian theater. And the first step towards the goal is ensuring an abundance of great plays.
With the aim of encouraging upcoming playwrights, Rasika and Zeeshan launched Sanhita Manch in 2017 as a nationwide hunt for new Hindi plays. This first-of-its-kind initiative received an overwhelming response, prompting Rasika and Zeeshan to turn Sanhita Manch into an annual event that playwrights across the country avidly look forward to. Sanhita Manch is back again - this time at a scale that's larger than ever before. Sanhita Manch'23 is inviting new plays in not just Hindi, but also in Marathi and English.
And for the first time, Sanhita Manch is open to not just Indian playwrights but to playwrights across the globe. Authors and playwrights are requested to submit their new and original plays, that have not been performed or published elsewhere, by filling the online Google form available on the Facebook page – ‘Sanhita Manch’ and the Instagram page – ‘Being Association’. The best Hindi plays will be adjudicated by the eminent theatre personalities Purva Naresh, Sapan Saran and Atul Tiwari. Mohit Takalkar and Prajakt Deshmukh will judge the Marathi plays while English plays will be judged by theatre personalities Keval Arora and Quasar Thakore Padamsee.