Articulate Mentoring Program (AMP)

Special Correspondents selected by the mentor

List of Selected Candidates

• Abhijay Tomar
• Abhik Ganguly
• Ahana Sen
• Aryama Bej
• Debarati Pal
• Harshita Pande
• Heer Nimavat
• Juheli Mandal
• Lakshmi Venkataraman
• Nupur Saraswat
• Purab Riddhi Chaudhuri
• Ranjini Nair
• Rishav Paul

*arranged in alphabetical order

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

About Articulate Mentoring Program

Articulate Mentoring Program or AMP is a unique mentorship program that seeks to inspire and equip young performers, artists and writers to write on art and culture. In the first edition, through a carefully designed workshop model, the selected mentees shall engage with performances. The primary goal of AMP is to help aspiring writers and critics articulate more effectively in order to take performance beyond its niche audiences and to reach and engage the common masses.

The first edition of AMP will be facilitated by noted academician and theatre critic, Professor Ananda Lal.

Meet the Mentor:

Prof. Ananda Lal is a theatre critic and renowned academician. After graduating from Presidency College and the University of Calcutta (B.A. 1976, M.A. 1978), he did a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Illinois, USA, in 1986. He joined as a lecturer at Jadavpur University, from where he retired in 2017 as Professor of English. His project to establish in Jadavpur University a Tagore Cultural Complex with four separate theatre spaces and a repertory won prestigious Ministry of Culture funding from the Government of India. A Cambridge Fellow (1994) and Fulbright Fellow (2005), he has lectured widely in the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia and, of course, India. He now heads Writers Workshop, India’s oldest creative writing publisher in English (founded 1958), and runs kolkatatheatre.com, devoted to theatre in Kolkata.

Prof. Lal began writing on theatre in 1978 in the Kolkata newspaper The Hindustan Standard. As theatre critic of The Telegraph (1986-2018) and then of The Times of India, he has reviewed more than 3000 productions and won several awards for his criticism. His most important books include, in order of publication, Rabindranath Tagore: Three Plays (the first English book exclusively on Tagorean drama), The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre (the first reference work on this subject in any language), Indian Drama in English: The Beginnings and Utpal Dutt’s “Barricade”. Prof. Lal has directed over 30 theatre productions and has worked on many others, especially such international successes as Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (directed by Tim Supple), for which he did the dramaturgy. He has a 40-year portfolio in television and film as a scriptwriter, researcher, commentator, narrator and subtitler. His research-based CDs include The Voice of Rabindranath Tagore, on Tagore’s own recordings.

Meet the Guest Lecturer:

Prof. Rustom Bharucha recently retired as Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.  He is the author of several books including Theatre and the World, The Question of Faith, In the Name of the Secular, The Politics of Cultural Practice, Rajasthan: An Oral History, Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin, and Terror and Performance.  The last publication was researched while he was a Fellow at the International Research Center/Interweaving Performance Cultures in Berlin, Germany, between 2010-2012.  Very recently, he has completed a new book titled Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments, co-edited with Paula Richman, to be published by Oxford University Press, New York.

A former advisor of the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development in the Netherlands, he has served as a consultant for the Arts Council in Ireland on cultural diversity in the arts, as well as for Ford Foundation on its interdisciplinary and multicultural Artography project in the United States. He has also worked as the Project Director of Arna-Jharna: The Desert Museum of Rajasthan devoted to the study of traditional knowledge systems and as the Festival Director of the Ramayana Festival at the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Research in Pondicherry, India. Currently, he is working as a dramaturge for an inter-Asian production of a new play based on the Mahabharata to be staged in Singapore at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, in 2022. 

Course Details and Timeline:

Session No.	About the Sessions	Date of the Sessions
1	An introductory session conducted by the mentor consisting of ice-breaking, getting to know the students and the mentor, and understanding the course layout.	18th June
2	The mentor would discuss with relevant examples individual styles, personal strengths, universal standards and so on. This session would also encourage discussion on these issues. By the end of the session, the mentor would assign the task of reviewing a performance. The written assignments would be eventually shared with the mentor and the editorial team at KCC.	25th June
3	All the participants would share their reviews receiving reactions and responses from peers as well as analysis of the reviews by the mentor.	2nd July
4	Led by the invited guest, this session views an experimental film on performance that cuts across different disciplines. Participants will respond to it individually and as a group, on its themes, form and structure. Thereafter, a short writing exercise will attempt to articulate different points of view in relation to the performance.	9th July
5	The final session synthesizes all the inputs and perspectives into a practical approach.	16th July

Please Note: All the classes will be held on Saturdays 4 PM onwards (for approximately 2 hours)

Rules and Regulations:

• The program would consist of 5 sessions.
• The sessions will be conducted online.
• Medium of instruction: English.
• Applicants would be required to submit a 1-page writing sample, ideally on a related subject.
• Selected applicants would be required to attend on all 5 sessions.

Outcome:

• All those who complete the AMP successfully will receive a Certificate of Completion.
• Based on the recommendation of the mentor as well as the invited professional/s, 3 aspiring performance critics will be made a ‘Special Correspondent‘ with Articulate. The Special Correspondents will be regularly commissioned to write and review for Articulate.

How to Apply:

• Fill up your details below and upload a 1-page writing sample as instructed.
• Click on the submit button to complete the application process.