HAMLETS Live
Unmasking the many faces of Hamlet
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of literature’s most celebrated yet inscrutable characters whose motivations have been studied by psychologists, philosophers, and playwrights alike. HAMLETS Live is a series of six short monologues in which different actors respond to the soliloquies narrated in the play by Hamlet. This online performance conceived by Chanakya Vyas is enacted live in front of an audience, who—through a series of playful provocations—are invited to share their interpretation of the soliloquies. Moving beyond the representation of Hamlet as a one-dimensional, revenge hungry protagonist, Vyas’s production demonstrates the all too human qualities of the tragic hero; inspiring the actors and the audience to locate the Hamlet in their everyday lives.
Medium: Video and Performance
Year: 2022
Process
Director Chanakya Vyas introduces the idea of 'Hamlets Live' to actor Padmavati Rao.
Actor Satvik Mahajan reading an updated version of the script written by Director Chanakya Vyas.
Director Chanakya and actor Kavya S exploring incorporating Hamlet playing music in the performance.
Performances
Team
Chanakya Vyas
Director-Playwright
Chanakya Vyas is a playwright, director and teacher. His play Algorithms was selected as one of the plays to be translated in Czech, as part of the NAYA/NOVÉ festival. He has studied Devised Theatre and Performance from LISPA, UK on a Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship (2014). He is also a recipient of the Project 560 grant by India Foundation for the Arts (2020), Ratan Tata Trust Scholarship (2018) and was recently commissioned to direct a play for the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival (2021). He currently teaches at Head Start Educational Academy and is also a visiting faculty at the Drama School, Mumbai.
Prasad Cherkady
Actor
Actor, filmmaker, and Yakshagana practitioner par excellence, Prasad Cherkady is the Founder and Creative Executive of ‘Kathegaararu’ (The Storytellers) – a Yakshagana, Theatre and Film Production company. The recipient of several awards for his work, such as the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre (META) Best Actor 2016, Prasad is also a Yakshagana and acting coach at Nagathihalli Cine Creation’s Tent Cinema, Yakshagana choreographer for Alva’s Education Foundation, and Yakshagana teacher at Theatre Mitu – South Indian intensive for International Students. He is also a Grantee of the Young Artist Scholarship for Yakshagana awarded by the Ministry of Culture, India. Currently, Prasad dons the roles of script writer and actor for a multilingual feature film helmed by actor-director-screenwriter Adarsh H Eshwarappa and for a Kannada feature film with actor-director Rishab Shetty, in addition performing, teaching, and conducting Yakshagana workshops across the country.
Kavya Srinivasan
Actor
Kavya Srinivasan is a storyteller, theatre actor and playwright. She has been on stage for the last ten years, and most recently was made Artist in Residence for Theatre at the Intercut Labs, a British Council project for Indo-Welsh creative exploration. In her free time, she can be found reading, singing and daydreaming.
Satvik Mahajan
Actor
Actor, theatre-maker and dancer, Satvik Mahajan is a graduate of the prestigious Drama School Mumbai, where he trained in acting and theatre-making, in addition to holding a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Vellore Institute of Technology. As an actor, he has worked with prominent theatre companies, such as Bangalore Little Theatre and Still Space Theatre Company, and acted in various digital ads for brands like Toyota, Nescafe, Reliance Trends, Bounce Bikes, Verisign, Manipal University and Popeyes India. He was seen as a lead in the short film Truth or Trash directed by Praveen Whitefield, and two music videos - Tum Mere Ho and Zindagi Ke Safar Mein.
Preetam Koilpillai
Actor
Actor, director, and pianist Preetam Koilpillai is an alumnus of the prestigious Purcell School of Music. Having also donned the roles of writer, cinematographer, producer, composer, and editor, Preetam has to his credit works such as documentary short ‘Passport Photos’ and video shorts ‘A Death In Four Movements’, ‘Guilt’, and ‘A Little Prayer’. He is currently the co-founder and a partner at Copac Media, a Bangalore-based creative consultancy that specializes in the conception and production of editorial content - film, blogs, podcast and books.
Padmavati Rao
Actor
Padmavati Rao is an actor, writer, director, translator and poet. Her presence in theatre and films spans decades. She speaks many languages but prefers writing in Hindi and is a published poet. As an actor she has worked in Kannada, Hindi, English, Marathi and now even Malayalam and Tamil cinema (recent release being Maara). The Kannada films she has worked in include the still popular Geetha. Her foray into Hindi cinema include blockbuster films such as Pardes, TE3N (pronounced Teen), Padmavat, Raat Akeli Hai, Tanhaji and the recent short film Miniaturist of Junagadh which has won the award for the best film at the International Festivals of Pune and Spain. Her solo show titled Kitchen Poems was performed at the prestigious Theatre Olympics in 2018. In 2021 she made a short five minute film Journey Of A Butterfly which was screened as part of a global project called Theatre Of The Streets.
Samyuktha Manogaran
Production Manager
A graduate from the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Samyuktha Manogaran also holds an MBA in Financial Management from Christ University. More enamoured with backstage work than being on stage, Manogaran worked as a programme associate for Ranga Shankara, as a production manager for Sandbox Collective's Smarter Digital Realities, and Gender Bender 2021. She is currently freelancing as a content creator for the Bhoomija Trust. Her brief accidental stint as a teacher led to her pursuing and completing her B.Ed degree, specialising in English and Business/Management Studies.
Aastha Kejriwal
Production Designer
Aastha (b. 28th December 1995) is a visual arts practitioner currently based in Bangalore. She has completed her M.F.A. in Painting from SN School of Arts and Communication and B.F.A. in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University. Her practice is based on everyday emotions, like sadness, anger, fear, hopelessness and is composed of experiences presented by life. Painting has been a consistent medium in practice for her and for a few years now, she has been exploring costume design along with lens-based work.
