The year seems to have flown by at record speed. Our regular community events -  Saturday Open Houses, Thespo Reads, Thespo Listens, Theatre Bugs - were already on a roll. We entered July, and bam! First Calls. Registrations. Travel Schedules. Screening. Everything happened in quick succession and the clock kept ticking faster.

With schedules locked, venues finalised and tickets booked, the festival curators, Siddhesh Purkar and Priti Bakalkar, set off to interact with more than a thousand young theatre makers in October. They travelled across 13 cities in a span of a month to watch almost a hundred plays in 17 languages and dialects. As this expedition came to an end - the festival curation came into being.

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Each play at the festival takes us on a unique journey. From reinterpreting mythology in Glitch in the Myth (Mumbai) and exploring folklore in Shim Cheong (Bengaluru)  to finding fun in funerals in A Study of Fear (Mumbai), to taking to the streets in protest in जो ग़ाएब भी है हाज़िर भी  (Lucknow). It is all there. Hindi, English, Urdu, Arabic and even Korean! KOREAN? That’s a first. How exciting and overwhelming!

The Thespo 25 mantra - हर रंग का मंच - shines through across the festival. Emerging theatre makers can train for tomorrow in diverse aspects of theatre with the wide array of workshops on offer. Experimental work finds a voice at the Fringe performances in Prithvi House. The platform performances in the foyer promise something for everyone and you are invited to spend the afternoons reading plays at the Prithvi Adda, where we throw a spotlight on the works of Satish Alekar - who will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Awards Night.

And if this is not enough, you can head to Juhu Beach, a hop-skip-jump away from Prithvi. Here, Damodharan K, Jino and Rahul Mangesh with their ‘Tables & Stools’, are eagerly waiting to be an audience to your story. And early mornings, you will also find Faezeh Jalali here, leading a bunch of young Kalari kalakars for a performance at the festival. And then, from the other side of the sea, Team Stages from Sri Lanka have joined us to work with Indian artists to create a devised piece. And if you are wondering how we are making all of this happen, the collaboration with Mohammed Lehry is all about Telling Your Own Story with little or no resources! Honestly, it is a little too serendipitous.

None of this would have been possible without our community of ‘Friends of Thespo’. Thanks to their incredible show of love, support and funding, Thespo 25 includes 18 performances, 7 workshops, 5 play readings and 4 collaborations in 6 languages with participants from over 20 cities in 3 countries!

And YOU are invited! Welcome to the Thespo tribe.

Cheers,

Team Thespo.