Inlaks Theatre Awardees 2024: Meera Sitaraman, Anklesh H, Sachin Ravindran and Abhay Mahajan
Meera Sitaraman, Anklesh H, Sachin Ravindran and Abhay Mahajan are the Inlaks Theatre Awardees for 2024. This week, we feature Meera, who is immersed in the traditional dance forms of Tamil Nadu , and Anklesh, who is pursuing leather puppetry. The other two awardees, Sachin Ravindran and Abhay Mahajan, will be featured in next week’s post.
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Meera Sitaraman
Meera holds a double Masters in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Medical Anthropology from Durham University, UK, for which she was awarded the Shared Commonwealth Scholarship. She has been working with Theatre Nisha for over 15 years now as an actor, designer, playwright, stage manager and director. She debuted as a director with The Trojan Women in Chennai in 2019 which later traveled to Bengaluru and the Soorya Festival, Trivandrum. She has acted in over 40 plays, and participated in more than 15 international, national and regional theatre festivals.
She is also a theatre educator and has been working in that capacity for 10 years. She works with schools that are inclusive and those that specifically work with children with learning difficulties; additionally, she also directs annual plays for them. She has participated in two international residencies with Performance Group Tuida, Hwacheon, South Korea. One of these is on 'Puppet as Body', and the other, 'Artists' Playground', which was a collaboration between Tuida and National Theatre, Wales.
Her script ‘The Cut’ was a finalist at The Hindu Playwright Award, 2016. Most recently, she won the Kali International Solo Award for 'Will Ammu Stop Crying?', organised by Kali Theatre, London. It is available as a film to watch on YouTube. Meera assists the Theatre Nisha team in conducting workshops for aspiring actors on screen and stage, students and teachers.
Meera will be working with Nellai Manikandan and Vishwa Bharath who are exponents of Devarattam, Oyillatam, Karagam, Parai Attam and Silambam. She will be learning Devarattam and Parai Attam from them over the year and understanding how to utilise the forms in her theatre practice. To culminate her learning, she wishes to redesign her play - The Trojan Women with an entire folk foundation.
Anklesh H
While pursuing his pre-university course from the Government College in Hosapete, Vijayanagara in Karnataka, Anklesh developed a keen interest in theatre. He trained at the theatre centre Raga Sangama Samkrutika Kala Trust in Hosapete and later, began working as an actor and technician. He has been working in theatre for nearly five years now as actor, director and assistant director. He has also been part of a theatre group in Karnataka, directing plays and organizing theater workshops and summer camps. Lately, he has begun to focus more heavily on theatre for children and youth, and has worked with a number of eminent theatre groups catering to them today. He is interested in traditional leather puppetry and intends to expand its reach through his work.
To know more about the Theatre Awards, visit our website here.
