As youth theatre festival Thespo's 18th anniversary, organisers Quasar Thakore Padamsee and Toral Shah hit the rewind button
Thespo brochures from 1999 to date
A sign outside the door of the Thespo office reads ‘Be Dramatic’. Inside, a bunch of 20 somethings are busy working on Excel sheets, checking the design of posters and readying themselves for the big day. On July 18, the festival of theatre for the under-25 will host an orientation at Prithvi Theatre. “The orientation day is good fun,” says a cheery 38-year-old Quasar Thakore Padamsee, who started the festival in 1999 along with four friends — Arghya Lahiri, Chris Samuel, Nadir Khan, Toral Shah. As he settles down beside Shah with a cup of hot coffee, he’s looking forward to new beginnings.
Thespo brochures from 1999 to date
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“The orientation meeting is actually an interesting show. It is the first event of the Thespo calendar. In the last few years, it has not only been informative but also entertaining with drama, music and games lined up. We announce plans for the year to come. We were told that orientations for college festivals are boring and we had to ensure ours was not. So, we put up a show,” says Padamsee. “The entire team organising the fest is under 25; they will stage their preparation tonight. We haven’t seen it yet,” he adds. Post the Mumbai leg, orientation meetings and workshops will take place in Pune, Nagpur, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Baroda along with three cities (Manipal, Guwahati and Jaipur ) that have been added to the list for the first time. The next few months will see an assortment of workshops and activities and in December, when the festival takes place, the audience will be treated to four to six, one-act plays.
Lifetime achievement award for Zohra Segal at Thespo 5
Starting call
“When we started, we had no idea it would be this big,” says Padamsee. “It happened by chance. I had graduated from St Xavier’s college and was back for the inter-collegiate festival, Malhar. I was seated in the auditorium during the theatre competition; I had directed the play for St Xavier’s and was watching an English play called Sadiya by Ruia College. It was phenomenal. I watch anywhere between 80 and 100 plays a year, and this was one of the best I’d seen. Around the room, just 15 people were watching this brilliant play. The light guy was asleep and the sound guy was picking his nose. I was hurt.
Quasar Thakore Padamsee and Toral Shah. Pic/Sameer Markande
Back in 1999, people were dismissive about young theatre. My friend, Chris (Samuel) and I found out about costing and logistics from Sophia and YB Chavan, if we had to hold a theatre fest for the youth. At the time, NCPA and Prithvi weren’t keen on youth-centric festivals. The Theatre Group Bombay wanted to support theatre by the youth. They were senior folk, and had mounted only two plays in the 1990s. We had the likes of Sabeera Merchant and Gerson D Cunha,” he shares.
Shah adds, “If we had time to think, we would not have been able to do it. In the first year, the theme was celebration of young theatre. After doing a post-mortem, we realised that we were in it for the long haul.” Padamsee reminisces about the chaos, “While a play was setting up, another one was happening in front of it. Thirty-five percent of the audience was regular public. Sophia used to be a hub for theatre-lovers in those days.”
Ali Fazal and Nimrat Kaur in the play Damages staged at Thespo 9
Is theatre relevant today?
“The audition process is crazy. The screening team watches six to eight plays a day in different cities,” shares Shah, her passion evident in her voice. Padamsee, who also seems deeply involved with the projects, adds, “We ask ourselves if Thespo is relevant, especially today, when everyone with a smartphone can upload a video or their writing on social media platforms to get noticed. We realise that apart from being a platform to showcase young talent, training and creating a connection between veterans and the youth is important.” When the screening team shortlist plays, they have a 20-minute conversation with each team post their performance to understand what keeps them together among the reason for their play choices, among other details.
Thespo 17
“In Nagpur, for example, a group we auditioned said they don’t do any physical theatre but only text-based plays, so we did a Capoeira (Brazilian martial art) workshop. In Kolkata, everyone had multimedia but they were struggling with text. In Jaipur, we did a direction workshop because if only seniors were directing, how would a young guy learn?” shares Padamsee.
Over the years, the festival has seen entries from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the USA. “The exchange is the most beautiful part of the festival. At one point, we did a play called Dhanda from Mumbai in Bangalore while Nagamandala from Bangalore was staged here. The response was phenomenal,” says Padamsee before he excuses himself to dive into heaps of pending work for the festival.
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