Mrityunjay Prabhakar

Mrityunjay Prabhakar
Theatre director, playwright and poet
Born	(1979-09-14) 14 September 1979 Nalanda, Bihar
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Mrityunjay Kumar Prabhakar
Occupation	Playwright, theatre director, theatre critic, poet

Mrityunjay Prabhakar (born 14 September 1979) is an Indian theatre director, dramatist, theatre critic, teacher of theatre and poet. He is one of the celebrated young theatre directors of India for his language loaded with socio-political concerns. He is an assistant professor of drama and theatre art at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal.

Early life and education

Born in a lower-middle-class family of a village in Nalanda, Bihar. He attended Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for his studies and research in theatre and performance studies in the School of Arts & Aesthetics in 2004.

Career

He started his theatre career in Patna during his graduation days. He has worked with several theatre groups like Abhiyan, Prerna, Manch Art group and Prangan in Patna. Later, he co-founded the group Abhiyan along with his friends. When he arrived Delhi for his further studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Here he worked with famous groups like Rang Saptak, Bahroop and Dastak. Later he founded his own group named SEHAR in 2005 and started working rigorously. He has got trained under leading figures of Indian Drama and Theatre world through different workshops he attended like Habib Tanvir, B. V. Karanth, Prasanna, Ratan Thiyam, D. R. Ankur and many more. He has worked with directors like D.R. Ankur, Lokendra Arambam, H. S. Shivaprakash, Surendra Sharma, Parvez Akhtar, Vijay Kumar, Javed Akhtar Khan, Suman Kumar and others. He has worked as an actor, director, set designer, light designer and organiser in theatre.

Presently, he works primarily as a theatre director and playwright with his group SEHAR. He is the founder-director of theatre troupe, SEHAR (Society of Education, Harmony, Art, Culture and Media Reproduction) (registered under the Society Act) in 2007. He has directed more than two dozen plays among them Sabse Udas Kavita,^[1]

A scene of the play Sabse Udas Kavita

Khwahishen,^[2] Jee Humen to Natak Karna Hai,^[3]Dhruvswamini,^[4] Vithalala and Suicide^[5] have got special attention from the larger section of the society.

He has also written plays like Aao Natak Natak Khelen, Khwahishen

Pic of play Khwahishen

, Jee Humen to Natak Karna Hai, Suicide, Hey Ram, Teri Meri Kahani Hai, Karnav and others, which have been performed by groups and directors in various theatre centres of the country. He has adapted famous Keniyan playwright Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's play The Black Hermit as Jayen to Jayen Kahan. The adaptation was first performed by NSD (National School of Drama) graduate Randhir Kumar in 2005 in Patna. Later he reproduced the play in 2010 with SEHAR in Delhi. He has adopted H. S. Shivaprakash's famous Kannada play Mochi Madaiah in Hindi which was directed by Lokendra Arambam and published by Yash Publication, Delhi. An anthology on contemporary Indian theatre titled Samkaleen Rangkarm is also credited to him. His Hindi poetry collection Jo Mere Bheetar Hain was published by Sahitya Akademi, the Indian national academy of letters.

He has been teaching performing arts, communication and Indian aesthetics at IIT Mandi, IIMC, New Delhi, NCERT, New Delhi and College of Art, Delhi. Presently, he is an assistant professor of drama and theatre arts in Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan.

Awards and recognition

He has been awarded Bihar Kala Samman by the Bihar government on the occasion of completion of hundred years of Bihar for his writings in the field of performing arts in 2012. He was awarded the Yuva Shabdsadhak Samman by the Hindi magazine Pakhi.

Works

Plays

'Sadho Dekho Jag Baudana', 'Aao Natak Natak Khelen', 'Khwahishen', 'Jee Humen To Natak Karna Hai', 'Suicide', 'Hey Ram', 'Teri Meri Kahani Hai', 'Karnav', 'Jayen To Jayen Kahan', 'Mochi Madaiah',

Books

'Samkaleen Rangkarm', 'Jo Mere Bheetar Hain', 'Sadho Dekho Jag Baudana', 'Jayen To Jayen Kahan', 'Mochi Madaiah', 'Colonial/Postcolonial Bihar and Jharkhand'.^[6]

Poetry collection

'Jo Mere Bheetar Hain'

References

External links

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