There are a plethora of Indian language plays India can be proud of but very often the country’s English language plays tend to get lost in the shadows, either because of preconceived notions or from being compared to Western plays. In an attempt to revive interest in Indian English language plays, city-based playwright and director Ramu Ramanathan decided to sow the seeds to educate the public about artists who have written immersive plays that deserve to be read. 

Ramanathan casually shared the thought with city-based duo Nikhil Katara and Himali Kothari, who had started the 'Readings in the Shed' initiative in 2018 to focus on the written text through readings. Katara and Kothari, who were both mesmerised by the idea, immediately got to work with a team of people looking through over 250 plays, written in the last two decades and chose 87 from them. While they have traditionally conducted readings, Katara and Kothari have approached this endeavour differently. Since launching on August 9, they have used artistic lettering to depict the name of the plays on the dedicated social media account – project87_theatre. The duo hope to encourage people to not only read the plays but also learn about the playwrights. They provide short intriguing snippets about the plays or talk about their accolades and pique interest about the playwright’s writing process.