Alumni 2014-15

Aakash Prabhakar

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  Aakash Prabhakar runs a theatre and a film production company of his own by the name of Here And Now. His recent theatre production credits include Visiting Mr. Green, a play that travelled to 54 countries before India with MK Raina where he plays Ross Gardiner.   It is written and directed by Jeff Baron which opened in NCPA Experimental and eventually toured to Bengaluru and Ahemdabad eventually, Cock – by Mike Bartlett which opened in Alliance Francis in Chennai and Bull -By Mike Bartlett which opened in Mumbai and ended up doing 15 shows within a year. It was directed by an Australian Award-winning Theatre director Glenn Hayden. He began professionally directing and producing plays from 2015.   Since then, he has Produced, Directed, and Acted in Crumpled- A Compilation Of Imperfect Love Stories and The Drum Roll- Tales of Friendship and Love with a Twist. Both these plays were performed in different intimate spaces around the country. Crumpled did about 50 shows in a year in Mumbai, Chennai, and Ahmedabad. One of those short stories “The American Dream” that he wrote and acted in won the Best Scriptwriter and Best Actor award at the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Chennai. The drum roll too played in different venues across the country.   He has been a part of several other plays with different Theatre Groups and Companies. Orphans ( by Rahul Rai), Taboo Talks, Confessions, Absolute, Marriageology (by Sunil Shanbag), Romeo and Juliet, This is all there is when there is all this by The Company Theatre and many more. He also attended a short term film making course in Nyfa, New York. He has acted in a bunch of short films, tv shows, films and music videos in the last 5 years. Some of them being “Shut up” which was produced by Sikhya Productions, The Connection By Quint Media,Videos by Terribly Tiny Tales being some of them. His latest independent feature film “Freddies Piano” produced by an American Film Production Company Silcrun Inc in collaboration with Stray Factory Entertainment a Chennai based firm which is in the post-production stage currently. Aakash also worked with a start-up called Castiko Inc as a creative director where he managed alternative art space in Mumbai. Even though it was short, it enjoyed an impactful spell.

  

Abhinav Grover

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  After graduating from DSM in 2015, Abhinav Grover has worked with Sunil Shanbag, Vikram Kapadia and Mahesh Dattani from Mumbai, Paul Goodwin from the UK and Renato Rocha from Brazil. He also spent two and a half years learning Yakshagana under Guruji Sanjeev Suvarna.

  He has been awarded the Tendulkar-Dubey theatre fellowship for the year 2019. He runs the theatre company ‘BeTaal’ with another DSM alumna, Vaishnavi RP where they made a ‘Raamji Aayenge’ an intertextual play combining Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ramayana’s Kishkindha Kaand.

  He is currently working as a professional theatre actor, writer and director in Mumbai.

Himani Pant

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  Himani, after graduating from the DSM, worked with Theatre Professionals for their Young People’s Theatre Programme. She worked as an instructor in Delhi for the programme. She currently teaches drama at a reputed educational institution in Gurgaon.

  Himani has also worked on various plays in different capacities, with the most notable being Faezeh Jalali’s 07/07/07. She was a part of the ensemble that won the META Award for the Best Ensemble for the play.

  

Ishan Khanna

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  Having done several things in theatre, both on-stage and off, Ishaan has had the opportunity to work with big theatre names like Sanjna Kapoor for Junoon.

  He has also been the casting director for a film called ‘Dirty Heroes’ starting Arunoday Singh, Atul Kulkarni, Rajesh Sharma and many others under the banner of Talking Frames Production.

  Currently, he is a part of the cast of this film and has also assisted the directorial team by conducting acting workshops for the secondary cast of the film.

  

Kaizad S. Gandhi

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  Kaizad S Gandhi is a versatile actor and theatre maker with substantial acting experience in Hindi as well as English, both on stage and in front of the camera. His own speaking accent is neutral in both languages; he has a good ear and is able to copy various regional and international accents. He has a naturally deep voice, but with a range, that lends itself easily to voice-over work. He has a BA degree in Psychology from Ambedkar University, Delhi. The DSM experience was critical in helping him understand his potential and deepen his interest in the performing arts, including direction.

  Since DSM, Kaizad has played a range of characters that have helped to enhance his consciousness of the variety, depth, and resilience of the human spirit. Among the roles he has done are: Deepak in Mahesh Dattani’s cine-play version of ’30 Days in September’ (Hindi), Larry in Patrick Marber’s ‘Closer’, Creon in ‘Project Antigone’, Amit Ray in ‘A Poem of an Ending’, based on Tagore’s Shesher Kobita (English), and Krishna in ‘CheckMate’ (Weekend Productions entry in IFP 50 Hours Film Challenge 2019).

  He has completed the NSD Theatre Director workshop (2018) and the SRC Theatre Director’s Training Programme (2017). He directed ‘Muthbhed’ a one-act play (produced in Delhi, Dehradun, Pauri, and Sahibabad) and 2 full-length plays, ‘Panne ki Anguthi’ and ‘Chamatkaar’ (Delhi).

  Keenly interested in all the processes connected to performance, Kaizad has worked behind the scenes as a production manager for Mahesh Dattani’s cine-play version of ‘Big Fat City’ and for ‘Fired by Hamlet’ under Ashwath Bhatt.

  Currently Kaizad is a member of the LTG Repertory, Delhi.

Karan Puri

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  Karan Puri is an actor. He has shot a Malayalam movie ‘Varthamanam’ with National Award winning director Siddharth Siva. He is a part of Four More Shots Season 2.

  Apart from this, he has shot for over 25 national ad campaigns for brands including Britannia, Indian Terrain, Tata, etc.

Kartavya Sharma

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  Kartavya Anthwaal Sharma is an actor, a part time jester and a drumming enthusiast. He is a graduate of the Drama School Mumbai and has dabbled with red nose clowning.

  He has acted in plays like Shikhandi, Lihaaf, Drum Roll and has acted in a feature film called Aithe 2.0 and in advertisements for brands like Airtel, Power Shoes, etc.

Mandira Bahl

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  Mandira has been taken a very different route since graduating from the DSM. She taught at a school for special children and directed a play for their annual function.

  Mandira went on to do an advanced course in photography and photoshop from Mumbai before moving to Delhi. In Delhi, she trained under a senior photographer and built her portfolio of photography and writing. She is now in New York doing a Master’s in Photojournalism. She has worked with NDTV Goodtimes, ART India, Prithvi Theatre and BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society) in various capacities.

  

Niketan Sharma

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  Niketan has started his own production house called NOW Productions. Under NOW Productions, Niketan recently premiered Adrak, a play he wrote and directed and acts in as well.

  He has also worked on learning new skills by attending workshops in Acting for Camera, conducted by the FTII alumni and has thereafter assisted them in conducting further workshops.

  He has worked as an actor with Australian director, Glenn Hayden in a performance-based workshop at Thespo. He has worked on a short films and has written and directed short videos for Zee Television and a phone application called Gorb.

  

Nikhil Murali

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  Nikhil Murali has been active in theatre in Delhi and Mumbai for the last 12 years and has performed in award-winning plays such as Shikhandi, 777, 12 Angry Jurors and A Farming Story. He has worked with Feisal Alkazi and Arvind Gaur in Delhi and Sunil Shanbag, Faezeh Jalali, Nadir Khan and Rajat Kapoor in Mumbai. During his time at the Drama School Mumbai, he learnt under instructors such as Faezeh Jalali, Neeraj Kabi, Sunil Shanbag and Mahesh Dattani.

  Nikhil has also explored traditional acting/dance forms such Kudiyattam and Yakshagana and has trained in the martial art form Kalaripayuttu.

Roshan Joseph Mathew

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  Roshan Mathew is a film and stage actor, best known for his work in Malayalam films. He made his debut in the 2016 movie “Puthiya Niyamam” directed by A. K. Sajan, in which he played the antagonist. He shot to popularity with his portrayal of Gautham Roy, a musician with a major identity crisis in Ganesh Raj’s “Aanandam” (2016).

  His performance in Anjali Menon’s “Koode” (2018) was widely appreciated and garnered him positive reviews. Roshan will next be seen in Geetu Mohandas’s “Moothon” In addition to his film career, Roshan has appeared in numerous theatre productions based in Mumbai and Chennai.

  Some of his prominent productions have been The Glass Menagerie directed by Rajit Kapoor, 07/07/07 directed by Faezeh Jalali. He has also directed an original play in Kochi called A Very Normal Family with a new team of artists based in the city.

Shivam Dev Singh

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  Shivam did a play called Open Cast under the banner of Indian Ensemble and Mimansha Theatre (backstage and acting respectively) after graduating from the DSM.

  He also worked with Vivek Vijaya Kumran for Kuttyattam, a form of Sanskrit theatre indigenous to Kerala. Shivam owns and runs a YouTube channel called The Aiwehi Talkies, which touches upon current topics, films. Shivam and his channel have also developed a Web Series titled Shit It’s Engineering, a comedy take on engineering students’ life, and a short film titled Kaizad. He conducted a theatre workshop in Pondicherry with Aryan Mouch. Shivam also worked as an actor in an ad for Ola Cabs. He also did a yet unreleased web series titled Ayyo Drama.

  Shivam has recently started his own advertising company called Aiwehi Media and Advertising Pvt Ltd.

  

Shristi Shrivastav

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  Shristi Shrivastav has been flying high since graduating from the DSM. She acted in Faezeh Jalali’s 07/07/07, by FATS TheArts. The play won the Best Ensemble Award at the META Awards. She rose to popularity after featuring in multiple videos for the Girliyapa series by TVF. Which led to her acting in the film OK Jaanu, a Dharma Production, based on the Tamil film OK Kanmani.

  Shristi has also been the understudy for Moonfool, a devised performance piece by Shapeshift Collective.