Crea-Shakthi Client Catalog

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No Drama. Just Theatre.

Information Catalogue Jan - Aug 2012

Crea-Shakthi is a theatre group committed to the cause of taking the craft to the next generation with special focus and attention provided to the training & skill development of heterogeneous groups between the age group 8 to 25. In the last 5 years, the group that boasts of tremendous collective experience has produced over 170 actors, 10 directors, 17 plays and over 80 shows mostly in Chennai. The end result - better quality for mainstream, with increased community awareness on the positive effects of the craft and greater communion amongst the young to make theatre grow rather than survive.

We run Chennai's first and biggest Youth Theatre Festival "MY Theatre Festival" and have also funded and associated with several city schools and colleges to take the cause of youth theatre forward. Our mantra - No Drama. Just Theatre.

Formely operating under the Brand name of Masquerade Youth Theatre, Crea-Shakthi has been revamped to operate on a bigger platform of course with special attention to the city’s college talent. Crea-Shakthi has grown into a full fledged event management firm with networks leading right to the core of the college activities.

Our networks also spread to a wider bandwidth having done several shows that cater to older audiences as well including HNI’s like Vinay Pathak’s Nothing Like Lear and several supper theatre productions around the city.

Our Team

Dushyanth Gunashekar

Partner & artistic director

Dushyanth Gunashekar is Partner & Creative Head at Crea-Shakthi. With 10 years of theatre experience, Dushy, as he is known in the theatre circles, brings together various theatre styles to provide a holistic training to young actors in Chennai and therefore resulting in a different production. Trained in Silambam, Chhau, Kalari under several reputed names from NSD, he has directed 2 plays – Ratan Thiyam’s Chakravyuha for Masquerade Youth Theatre & Bhopal for The Madras Players.

With Bhopal, Dushyanth became the youngest director for The Madras Players in their 57 year legacy.

He was also the first to curate an inter collegiate festival in Chennai called Drama-Log for Goethe Institut, which led him to be selected for The World Youth Theatre Festival at Stuttgart Germany in June 2012. Dushyanth has over 30 plays and nearly 100 shows to his credit as actor, director, writer & producer. He was a financial analyst at PKF Sridhar & Santhanam till 2011.

Mohamed Faizan

Partner

Mohamed Faizan, Partner (Accounts & HR), is a Chartered Accountant by profession and is currently employed at Olam International. Apart from his audit experience with PwC and RGN Price & Co., Faizan has always been an enthusiast of good writing and journalism, as his evident from his stint at The Hindu. A constant at all the major quizzing events in Chennai city, Faizan is a big fan of the literary arts, and believes that education can never be well rounded till it embraces the literary/ performing arts. Theatre, he feels, is the perfect takeoff point to spread Crea-Shakthi's wings into various other art forms.

Abhinav Suresh

Partner & artistic director

Abhinav Suresh is a Partner and Artistic director with Crea~Shakthi. He has been performing for about 8 years with various English theatre groups. He is the youngest actor to have won the ‘Best Actor in a Lead Role’ in Natak (2004), a national Theatre Festival. His mainstream directorial ventures include the works of Mahesh Dattani, Gautam Raja, Jonathan Rand, etc. He is the youngest professional director (in the country) to have directed the award winning 'Final Solutions' by Mahesh Dattani. He has acted in around 18 productions and 125 on-stage appearances. He has conducted theatre workshops across different age groups. He has been working with PricewaterhouseCoopers (I) Pvt. Ltd. (PwC) since early 2008.

Vaidhya M Sundar

Partner & artistic director

Our very our energizer bunny, Vaidhya is an actor, director & production manager all rolled into one. with over 8 years of stage experience with the likes of Evam, The Madras Players and MYT - Vaidhya brings in amazing energy to the group and of course oodles of talent. He has the privelege of being awarded the Best Director award (week 1) in Short & Sweet festival 2012 - the youngest to achieve this award as well. Among other things, Vaidhya is also a professional photographer and is a familiar face in the college culturals circuit with his abilities in public speaking & stand up comedy being well known

Shyam Parthasarathi

Partner

Shyam Parthsarathi, a Bcom graduate from Vivekananda college & a CPA is currently a Senior Analyst with Deloitte & TOuche Hyderabad. His no nonsense attitude to life rubs off on the rest of the team has he takes a keen interest in project risks and business development for the firm. He is also looking to expand our operations to other cities - starting with Hyderabad & Bangalore.

Ramesh Kumar Surana

Partner

Ramesh Kumar Surana is a Chartered Accountant and is currently Vice President Finance at Anush Shares & Securities - a leading stock broker in Chennai. A former president of the Rotaract Club of Madras, Ramesh is an avid football fan and sees tremendous potential in business model of creashakthi. He has come aboard as partner and as our prime business adviser and investment manager.

Abishek Ananth

Partner

The dashing young partner and co-founder of Crea-Shakthi, is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of India and is currently residing in Muscat. He is responsible for the Branding and Marketing of the firm. The first in his family to get into a business partnership, he wants to see the firm transform from a partnership into India's most successful Theatre Company which produces and stages plays all over the world. His hobbies include trekking, traveling and deep sea diving.

Our Associates

Our Past Events

Production Overview Name of the Production

Playwright

Month & Year

Charandas Chor Chakravyuha A Play About Death Bhopal Drama Log Pub Crawl & other plays Man from Earth Mactric's Vidhuran Two Timing Cheating Cheaters Vinay Pathak is Nothing like Lear Hattamala & beyond Final Solutions Neil Simon’s Rumors God of Carnage 2Ps of the Cultural Mix

Habib Tanvir Ratan Thiyam Thomas Manuel Rahul Varma College Contest Gautam Raja Jerome Bixby Mime Johnathan Rand John Patrick Rajat Kapoor Badal Sircar Mahesh Dattani Neil Simon Yasmina Reza Collective

August 2009 February 2010 March / October 2011 June 2011 January 2012 February 2012 February 2012 February 2012 March 2012 June 2012 July 2012 July 2012 August 2012 August 2012 August 2012 August 2012

MY Theatre Fest 2012 Abhinav Suresh, Aditya Madhavan, Vaidhya M Sundar and Shravanth Reddy

As Chennai’s first and only youth theatre festival, The MY Theatre Fest in February 2012 truly signalled the beginning of the literally dramatic journey that CreaShakthi was about to take. Three plays of varying genres, from black comedy “Pub Crawl”, to the science fiction of “Man From Earth” to the mime act in “Vidhuran”, gave a platform for 4 directors and 50 young actors to show what they were made of. With over 1,000 tickets sold over a course of 3 days, MYTF was the showcase that youth theatre in the city could only dream about.

“The city’s first youth theatre festival paves the way for bigger and better fare...” - The Hindu

World Theatre Day Production: Two Timing Abhinav Suresh and Vaidhya M Sundar

Comedy, the genre that defines youth theatre in Chennai, was given the proverbial one-two punch on March 24, World Theatre Day. Two Timing was a double whammy featuring monologues, Gautam Raja’s Hurricane Shobha & Ten Tonne Tongue; as well as the ensemble comedy by Jonathan Rand, “Check Please”. The latter featured a cast of ten actors, as the central characters battled their way to find themselves perfect partners, while audiences laughed themselves silly.

Annual Summer Camp Grooming fresh talent is something we always pride ourselves on, and there was no better time than summer to set the ball rolling. A 15 day theatre workshop was conducted in May for 13 to 25 year olds, who were moulded into the art form with interactive sessions that included the whole gamut of the theatre experience – from acting to lighting to writing to even martial arts. At the end of the fortnight, the participants not only began their journey to become theatre artists, but also packed a bag full of memories to take home with them.

Cheating Cheaters Harshavardhan Ganesan and Vaidhya M Sundar

The season opener “Cheating Cheaters”, a madcap comedy by John Patrick, opened to a resounding response on June 16. The play, a hilarious congame based 60s America, attracted a footfall of 550 in just two shows in Chennai alone. The success of this comic caper encouraged us to make a foray into Bangalore and Hyderabad, where it received acclaim from the press. This franchise has proven that when it comes to youth theatre, there is no one in the city that pulls in the crowds as we do.

“There’s never a dull moment...” – The Hindu

Vinay Pathak’s Nothing Like Lear Rajat Kapoor

A whole new ballgame awaited us on July 1. Crea-Shakthi had the honour of hosting renowned Bollywood artists, Vinay Pathak and Rajat Kapoor, as they performed their adaptation of the Shakespearean classic, King Lear, in Chennai for the very first time. “Nothing Like Lear” was by far Chennai’s social event of the year, with the who’s who of the socialite circle and theatre enthusiasts thronging at the Music Academy. From planning, pre-production to on-the-ground execution, Crea-Shakthi, proved that we were among the best in the event management business, a fact acknowledged by Kapoor himself.

Hattamala and Beyond Hans Padmanabhan Kaushik

On July 7, our fresh new legs from the Annual Summer Camp were given the opportunity to star in their very first public production. “Hattamala and Beyond” was a night packaged with two Badal Sircar plays replete with a social message – an apt springboard for our first time actors not only to get a feel of the stage, but also nods of approval from erstwhile skeptic parents.

“Sincerely effortless, but is also riveting...” - The New Indian Express

The Short n Sweet Festival: Who’s the Boss Now? & Just Desserts Vaidhya M Sundar and Hans Padmanabhan Kaushik

Ten minutes. That’s all there is to it. But when you are pitted against the crème de la crème of the theatre circle in Chennai city, it takes a whole new meaning.

Crea-Shakthi powered its way through the Prakriti Foundation’s Short n Sweet Festival, a competition of 10 minute plays, at the Alliance Francaise. “Who’s the Boss Now?”, penned and acted by Dushyanth Gunashekar, was awarded with 4 awards, namely Best Script, Best Actress, Best Director and Play of the Day.

Final Solutions Abhinav Suresh

Legendary Indian playwright Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions, was brought to life on stage for the very first time in Chennai on August 3, in association with Theatre Impresario. Set in the communally charged Bombay during the ’93 riots, Final Solutions is a take on humanity’s inherent failures and triumphs – theatre at its unadulterated best. Crea-Shakthi’s marquee production of the year was also its most high profile – we were honoured by the visit of Mr. Dattani himself, who not only watched his play on stage, but also obliged on a highly informative interactive session with our young actors and actresses.

“Pushes the audience to places they’ve never been before...” - The New Indian Express

Live in August: The Crea-Shakthi Ensemble Tanvi Patel and Nayantara Nayar | Nivedita, Sakina and Rishika | Juhi Sharma

While we may keep harping on the amount of talent that we develop and grow, there is no better proof than putting this talent on stage. Three of the premier colleges in Chennai, Stella Maris (Rumours), Women’s Christian College (God of Carnage) and MOP Vaishnav (2Ps of a Cultural Mix) presented their plays under our banner on August 8 at the Goethe Institut. The evening, performed to several packed houses as part of The Hindu’s Live in August month, was a microcosm of young and enthusiastic theatrical talent that the city has to offer, and Crea-Shakthi was only too happy to be a part of this development initiative.

“Interactive perspective to the whole set...” - The New Indian Express

Theatre in Education

Crea-shakthi has been an avid supporter of the cause of theatre being used as a tool to impart alternate education to Children & young adults in the age group of 8 to 25. Various trainers work with Crea-shakthi and using their collective experiences provide a platform to allow youngsters to groom themselves through this craft which encourages greater communion. Theatre has always been regarded as a craft that, if properly imparted, can mould the next generation to be more responsible citizens in society.

Currently Crea-Shakthi operates in 6 schools/ Activity Centres • Chettinad Vidyashram • Chettinad Hari Shree Vidyalaya • APL Global school • Children’s Club Activity Centre • Sherwood Hall • National Public School The idea is to create a more informed bunch of youngsters therefore leading to more taking to the craft in the right way.

Grants/Scholarships & Sponsorships

In true spirit of the community, Crea-Shakthi has gone out of the way the last year and has provided, apart from artistic advise and mentoring, finance as well to the tune of Rs.1.75 Lakhs in various capacities to the following institutions: • Stella Maris College • Women’s Christian College • National Law School, Bangalore – for Admit One • Anna University • MOP Vaishnav College for Women • IIT, Madras • Sastra University • SRM university • Madras Christian College • Vivekananda College • Loyola College • Ethiraj College for Women • Mactric’s Mime Group

Social Responsibility

We have raised funds for several Not for Profit organizations including: • The Rotaract Club of Madras • Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children • Reclaim Our Beaches • Barbara Kelly Home for underprivileged girls MY Theatre Festival sponsors the boarding, education & living expenses of 1 girl child in Barbara Kelly Home project in OMR, Chennai

Achievements & Awards

• Dushyanth is the youngest director in the history of The Madras Players in their 60 year culture • Dushyanth was the only Indian delegate at the World Youth theatre conference at Stuttgart Germany in June, 2012 • Crea-Shakthi play “Who’s The boss Now?” won the Best Script, Best Actress & Best Director play respectively at The Short & Sweet Festival Week 1 in July, 2012 • Mahesh Dattani – award winning playwright – personally came for the show “Final Solutions” and mentioned to the press and public that Crea-Shakthi represents the professionalism required in theatre in today’s times and I feel theatre in Chennai is in good hands.

• Despite being filled with young actors – successfully increased the bandwidth of target audience with a diverse audience reach amongst old and young.

• Official dramatic partners for several schools and colleges and through this has created over 180 actors in the last 5 years leading to more plays and actors for mainstream theatre.

• Abhinav was the youngest ever actor to win the ‘Best Actor in a Lead Role’ in Natak (2004), a national Theatre Festival featuring colleges and performance groups from across the country.

• Abhinav is currently the youngest professional director, in the country, to have directed the award winning 'Final Solutions' by Mahesh Dattani, which completed on August 2012

Future Plans

MY Theatre Festival powered by Saarang 2013

The second edition of the festival is being planned – and if all goes as per the schedule below, this will arguably be India’s biggest Youth Theatre Festival Segment 1 Jan 9th to 13th – In association with Saarang 2013 – Crea-Shakthi will bring together colleges from across the country in an inter college dramatics festival with awards upto Rs.75,000 in cash and a chance to perform professionally in segment 5 of the fest.

Segment 2 Jan 18th to 21st – An inter school competition is being planned to supplement more interest amongst the schools in Chennai. This will be a first time ever and interest shown is very encouraging.

Segment 3 – Jan 27th – Best of Schools – The 5 top schools will come together to perform in a professional event from segment 2 Segment 4 Feb 1st to Feb 3rd – Stella Maris Annual College Play – Directed by Dushyanth Gunashekar from Crea-Shakthi – the annual college play will form part of the festival as a professional show for 5 shows over 3 days at Alliance Francaise De Madras Segment 5 Feb 8th & Feb 9th – The top 3 colleges will perform along with the top 5 schools at a reputed 500 seater auditorium in the city to the general public after receiving training from us. Apart from this 1 show premiere of “President is Coming” a cult Indian play will be performed by members of Crea-Shakthi

creashakthi@gmail.com Dushyanth Gunashekar +91 99401 38749 Mohamed Faizan +91 98402 10698 No. 7c, 7th Floor, 7th Block, Rani Meyyamai Towers 1 & 2 Greenways Road, R.A. Puram Chennai 600 028