03/01/2020
2019 has been an eventful year for Hauns that saw our latest production, Avyahat, win accolades, and critical acclaim. We opened the show in December 2018 at the State Level Marathi theatre competition organized by Kala Academy, Goa. Avyahat won the second prize along with a host of individual awards which included a prize for Best Adapted Script, Best Actor, Best Direction and Best Set Design. We were then shortlisted to compete at the much-coveted Rajya Natya Spardha – the annual Marathi theatre competition organized by the Directorate of Cultural Affairs, Maharashtra Government. Avyahat won the first place, among 39 teams, with Rohan Naik winning the award for Best Direction while Keatan Jadhav won a silver medal for his acting performance in the play.
The success at the Maharashtra theatre competition catapulted us into a steady run of shows in Goa and Maharashtra. We performed to a packed house in Mumbai at the much sought after venues like the Marathi Sahitya Sangh, Girgaon and Maratha Mandir, Dadar. In Goa, we were invited to perform at Ravindra Bhavan and Gomant Vidya Niketan in Margao, Ravindra Bhavan in Sanquelim, Rajiv Gandhi Kala Mandir in Ponda, and Ravindra Bhavan at Curchorem. We also performed at the annual prize distribution ceremony of Kala Academy, and at the festival of prize-winning plays organized by the Maharashtra State government at Kolhapur.
Akhil Bhartiya Natya Parishad, the apex body of the Marathi theatre community, awarded Avyahat with the Bapurao Pendharkar memorial award for the Best Play in the amateur category while Rohan Naik won the Prasad Sawkar and Ramesh Chaudhari memorial award for Best Director.
Avyahat was featured in the Pune Mirror, Navhind Times, The Hindu (Bombay edition) and Indian Express. The Hindu rated Ketan Jadhav’s portrayal of Upali – the protagonist in Avyahat – as one of the 13 best acting performances on the Indian stage in 2019. We received several messages, emails, and comments in praise of the show and some of them have been listed on our blog. We’ve also had some eminent personalities who have expressed their feedback over video and we will be soon releasing them on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
As we step in the year 2020, we are thrilled to announce that Avyahat will perform at the much sought after International Theatre Festival of Kerala in January 2020. Moreover, Hauns will be completing 70 years since its inception in 1950 and we are planning some exciting events to commemorate the occasion. This would include a festival of contemporary plays, a seminar of theatre scholars and practitioners, and projects to document the theatre history of Goa. And yes, new scripts and productions are on the cards as well.
In all this, we’ve received immense love from all of you. We hope you will continue to shower the same love in the coming years as we set out to scale new heights in continuing our commitment towards imagining a just society through theatre.