Creativity in Diversity: The Opening Reception of META

Sparkling hopes, earnest anxiety and celebratory spirits spread across the pinkish hues of the Terrace Garden, The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road, as the Opening ceremony of the 11th edition of META (Mahindra excellence in Theatre awards) kicked in.

The ceremony began with full fervor as various individuals who have made a mark for themselves, from different walks of life came to attend. It included the likes of Ira Dubey, who is the daughter of the late Creative Producer, Ravi Dubey. Vinod Nagpal and Tarun Tejpal were amongst the other personalities who graced the event with their presence.

Theatre is one of the few performing arts that engages directly with the audience. This is a medium that has the precious power of influencing ideas, perceptions and behavior. Recognition of the excellence amongst budding artists thus becomes very important for the theatre fraternity and more important than that, the Common Man.

META has been known to provide the exact recognition, ensuring a right balance amongst all classes of the performers and being a forum that stands for the idea of freedom of expression without any ifs or buts.

The view was resonated and reiterated by many reputed names who voiced their messages in a Video that was played in the beginning. Some of them include Saurabh Shukla, Anjum Katyal, Abhishek Majumdar, Jino Joseph and Gunakar Dev Goswami.

The evening also saw a musical performance by the Enchanting Michelle Burke accompanied by James Ross and Anna Massie. Burke invited the audience to ‘Step into her Parlor,’ adorned with fur, newspaper clippings and all sorts of things that would want you to make an effort to take more than a step into her parlor. And if you thought you just missed a musical performance, you were in for a surprise as it involved a glass of sherry along with sharing of stories of Irish Tradition with a spin of knitting. Strangely happy songs evoked a sense of nostalgia, while the songs that she claimed were sad made the mood for merry-making.

Each song left the audience wanting for more as they were interspersed with stories about Burkes childhood, instances about her grandparents and tips of every kind, starting from housekeeping these recommendations were also for newlyweds, for people affected by ringworm and many other things.

In an era that continuously laments about the lack of culture and decline of art and heritage, Sanjoy Roy, Creative producer of META affirmed his belief in the promising state of arts. META is a platform that does not cater to a single kind of audience nor does it promote or endorse a uni-dimensional ideology. The roots of the Theatre festival lie in diversity that surpasses all the distinctions related to caste, class, gender, Llnguage and theme.

Till now with 2500 entries and screening of over 108 plays, META has given a platform to more than 2200 artists and crew members and aims to further its reach as it enters its 11th year.

Sanjoy Roy announced the nominations in different categories for this year, after which Jury was announced.

The Jury of META 2016 includes Kunal Basu, Kusum Haider, M.K Raina, Tanushree Shankar and Sushma Seth.

— Samridhi Roy