Stagecraft Theatre zooms in on life with their online play

Bengaluru-based theatre troupe Stagecraft talk about their upcoming event, Zoomed In!

Bengaluru-based theatre troupe Stagecraft will be presenting, Zoomed In! a set of five plays in an online format on October 30 and 31.

Stagecraft was founded in 2015 by Prabahan Chakraborty, a neuro scientist currently based out of France, for the benefit of a group of scientists who wanted to channel their creative side. “We are scientists by day and do plays by night,” says Aditya Vijaykumar, one of the producers of the show.

Zoomed In! is a collection of five short plays written and directed by Prabahan Chakraborty. Conceptualised during the lockdown, the plays were written to suit an online format and a few revolve around different aspects of the pandemic such as loneliness. “They are meant to be performed on Zoom or an online format and it would not be easy to adapt them for the stage. Each play is a standalone one with a duration of 15-20 minutes and genres include satire, science fiction and romance among others. The total run time for the event would be about 90 minutes,” says Aditya.

“With cast members living across different time zones, practising for the plays was a challenge,” he says, adding they followed a fixed schedule for over a month so sessions could run smoothly.

The Stagecraft troupe comprises 14 members in the age group of 20 to 35, all of whom have participated in all five plays in some capacity or the other. While all the members of Stagecraft are primarily scientists or are related to that field, for the production of

Zoomed In! professional theatre actors were invited to audition.

Supported by the French Institute in India, the plays feature artistes in three countries and six cities, and first ran in August 2021.

StageCraft’s Zoomed In! will run on October 30 and 31 at 5.30 pm and 8 pm (IST). Tickets are available at linktr.ee/stagecraftncbs