One of my friends told me that some theatre play ‘Pagalkhana’ is going to be held today at Maharashtra Bhawan by team Natyansh. The title of the play attracted me and I went to see it. It was my first experience in Udaipur watching a play live. The show was houseful and many audiences were standing at back to watch the show. This play gave me Goosebumps many times. Written by Sahitya Academy awardees Sh. Ashok Kumar ‘Anchal’ and directed by Ashfaq Noor Khan, this satirical play unwraps the masks on people with power and authority and showing the reality and suffering of innocent people.
2 hour Power pack performance was filled with action, thriller, and suspense which were revelled layer by layer. The beginning and end of the show left spectacles speechless and the show got a standing ovation.
After the play, I came to know about team Natyansh. This team was founded by five ‘PAGALS’ with an objective of using theatre for social change and community building. Established in 2013, the team has given more than 1200 shows of street plays, stage plays and storytelling & poetry sessions. This group organizes workshop ‘Taraash’ for underprivileged children. Every year Natyansh organises a woman-oriented national level theatre festival named ‘Alfaaz’ where teams from all over the country come to perform. As part of their festival, they conduct many activities like drawing competition, photography competition, storytelling, poetry slams, film screening, street plays etc to engage local people and take their active participation in this cause.
After seeing play ‘Pagalkhana’ I became fan of team Natyansh and would like to congratulate all the artists and members of the team for this successful show. I promise I am not going to miss their any show and you too don’t dare to miss any play.
About play cast and team:-
| Role/Character | Person |
| Narrators(सूत्रधार) | 1. Neha Purohit 2. Palak Kayath 3. Rakshit Anand (he was politician’s bhanja(nephew) too) |
| Radha | Indra Singh Sisodia |
| Mukhbir | Chakshu Singh Rupawat |
| Patrakar | Mohan Shivtare |
| Neta | Dharmendra Tilawat |
| Udhyogpati | Mahesh Joshi |
| Gayak | Agastya Hardik Nagda |
| Darban | Raghav Gurjar Gour |
| Sursatiya | Manisha Sharma |
Program manager: Mohd. Rizwan Mansuri
Music Director: Hemant Ameta
Head Project coordinator: Abdul Mubin Khan Pathan
Head of Communication: Rekha Sisodia
Designing of print material: Amit Shrimali
Writer: Ashok Kumar ‘ Anchal’
Rewrite and Director: Ashfaq Noor Khan Pathan
For more photos of the Play, you can check out our Facebook Photo album of play.
For more info about Natyansh, you can message them on their Facebook Page or check their website.