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Tag: Mahesh Dattani

  • Zee Theatre to celebrate dramatic feast of 30 plays in 30 days

    Zee Theatre to celebrate dramatic feast of 30 plays in 30 days

    Mumbai: Zee Theatre has announced an unprecedented theatrical extravaganza to provide dramatic riches to its audience on a daily basis. Har Din Naya Drama, a dramatic feast of 30 plays in 30 days, will entertain and engage viewers every day at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Tata Play Theatre.

    This is a celebration of the best of India’s vast and diverse theatre fraternity’s classic, contemporary, and boundary-breaking content. Under this campaign, viewers will be able to watch both old favourites and brand new, original plays in the “Blockbuster” and “Premiere” categories. The “Weekend Highlights” will feature stories that are themed or commemorate special occasions and festivals.

    This campaign will also be live on other platforms such as Airtel Theatre, Dish TV & D2H Rangmanch.

    Talking about “Har Din Naya Drama,” ZEEL Shailja Kejriwal chief creative officer of special projects said, “The idea of “30 Days, 30 Plays” stems from our commitment to offer audiences more of what they want and to give them more value for the time and resources they invest in Zee Theatre. We always strive to make the best of Indian theatre more accessible and to give audiences what they love by enriching and expanding our repertoire. We want to transform the concept of daily entertainment by bringing these masterpieces right into your living room, and we are proud that viewers will now be able to watch a specially selected teleplay everyday.”  

    The new teleplays in the “Premiere” category will add to the existing repertoire of over 90 teleplays, while popular stories such as Sir Sir Sarla and Chokher Bali will be screened in the blockbuster category.

    Over the years, Zee Theatre has collaborated with renowned theatre veterans such as Mahesh Dattani, Vijaya Mehta, Lillete Dubey, Atul Kumar, and young stalwarts such as Purva Naresh to recreate and bring to life some of the most celebrated stories across languages.

    Among the well-known actors in this vast library are Gajraj Rao, Mita Vashishth, Ashutosh Rana, Virendra Saxena, Vikram Gokhale, Mohan Agashe, Nandita Das, Mahira Khan, and Aahana Kumra.                                                                                                                               

  • Hotstar breaks norm, introduces CinePlay

    MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s leading streaming platform today announced that it is expanding its Premium Service and offering a new storytelling format, CinePlay, under its Originals banner. Hotstar Originals’ CinePlay will showcase classics and contemporary stories from the theatre world presented in a cinematic fashion. Each CinePlay will bring together the work of leading playwrights, internationally renowned directors and the best of the actors from both the theatre and cinema worlds.

    Available exclusively in India for Hotstar’s premium subscribers, 20 CinePlay titles will release regularly on the platform, starting with 5 titles being released on 13 February.

    The announcement comes close on the heels of the partnership with Disney that Hotstar announced last month. With that announcement, Hotstar Premium had put together a portfolio of American TV shows and movies from three of the best studios in the world: Disney, Fox and HBO.

    The introduction of CinePlay to the Premium service represents another big jump for the platform, which has already established stellar leadership in the highly competitive and fast evolving space of on-demand content. According to third party measurement company App Annie, Hotstar was the largest premium streaming platform in the month of January in India with more than 60 million users. Its watch time for the month was more than 12 times that of Amazon Prime Video and more than 20 times that of Netflix.

    CinePlays will bring some of the most renowned stories from theatre from leading playwrights like Dr. Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar, Mohan Rakesh, and Mahesh Dattani amongst others. The productions have been helmed by renowned directors such as Santosh Sivan and Nagesh Kukunoor. They will feature some of the most compelling actors of the theatre and film world including Nandita Das, Saurabh Shukla, Lillete Dubey, Swanand Kirkire, Namit Das, Darshan Jariwalla, Rajpal Yadav, Sonali Kulkarni and others.

    “We love breaking norms,” said Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan. “We have never believed in the artificial separation between television and digital audiences. Our aspiration for Hotstar Originals has always been to introduce new formats and stories that are not being explored by anyone, irrespective of the screen. CinePlay is a big leap forward for storytellers and their audiences in the country. We are excited to bring an entirely new way of storytelling to a generation that has not been exposed to either these stories or to the power of theatre.”

    “CinePlay is presenting a new visual language that blends the grammar of theatre and the power of cinema. We are excited to be exclusive partners with Hotstar in bringing these rich and relatable stories to every screen. With this collaboration, we hope to capture the imagination of the digital generation through an immersive cinematic experience of the theatre,” said CinePlay chairman and co-founder Subodh Maskara.

  • Zee Entertainment forays into theatre; plans 100+ productions

    Zee Entertainment forays into theatre; plans 100+ productions

    MUMBAI: In an attempt to be present across all verticals of entertainment content, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) has now forayed into theatre under the Zee Theatre brand name.

     

    Zeel has taken this initiative so as to make theatre content available through various viewing platforms like online, on-air, on-ground, in-transit for global audiences to consume at their convenience as well as archiving the productions for future generations.

     

    Zee Theatre will partner with renowned playwrights and theatre stalwarts to produce over 100 plays over the next three years.

     

    Zeel MD and CEO Punit Goenka said, “Theatre has been a part of our DNA for centuries. With Zee Theatre our vision is to preserve this heritage and take these timeless stories to audiences across the country and the rest of the world. It is a very proud moment for us to be able to bring theatre to mainstream entertainment and give the industry its due.”   

     

    “After television and cinema, theatre will be the next content vertical for us at Zee. With Zee Theatre, we are opening up a new genre for multiple screen consumption. This is in line with our strategy of offering differentiated content to our discerning audience base,” he added.

     

    Zee Theatre will bring together works of some of the most acknowledged and renowned playwrights like Mohan Rakesh, Jaywant Dalvi, Vijay Tendulkar, Surendra Verma, Mahesh Dattani, Ranjit Kapoor, Shafaat Khan and many others from Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and English theatre.

     

    Stalwarts such as Ranjit Kapoor, Mahesh Dattani, Usha Ganguli, Vijay Kenkre, Dr. Vijaya Mehta, Atul Kumar, Ishan Trivedi, Suman Mukhopadhyay, Chandrakant Kulkarni, Rajan Tamhane and many more will be bringing alive some of their best stories on this platform with plays such as Rudali, Sandhya Chhaya, Piya Behrupiya, Janpath Kiss, White Lilly Night Rider, 30 Days in September, Doll’s House and Ma Retire Hoti Hai amongst others.

     

    Zeel chief creative – special projects Shailja Kejriwal added, “The beauty of theatre is that it takes you into a fascinating world of stories across genres from drama and suspense to social issues, musicals, classics and satire in a manner not dealt with on any other medium. With Zee Theatre we aim at nurturing this rich content for present and future generations to continue the legacy, which has been cherished by veterans for decades. I would like to thank the entire theatre industry for extending their support for this initiative.”

     

    Zee will leverage its ability to make theatre available across multiple platforms such as the internet, mobile, DTH, television, in-flight, screenings at multiplexes and educational institutes in addition to existing on-ground performances making theatrical content available to the widest possible audience at their convenience.

  • Kitaabnaama: Books and Beyond to be telecast on DD from Sunday

    Kitaabnaama: Books and Beyond to be telecast on DD from Sunday

    NEW DELHI: A unique book show Kitaabnama: Books and Beyond is being launched on Doordarshan from 25 August.

     

    The programme will be telecast weekly on Sundays at 8:00 pm on DD Bharati and on Saturdays at 6:00 pm on DD National.

     

    The evocative title song has been penned and put to music by famed lyricist and screenwriter Prasoon Joshi.

     

    Addressing literary issues of contemporary interest through dialogue and conversation, Kitaabnama shall feature books, readings and encounters with writers from the spheres of Hindi, English and various Indian languages, as well as guest appearances from international names and voices.

     

    Conceived by writer and literary activist Namita Gokhale, the programme will have a participatory and inclusive format and showcase the multilingual diversity of Indian literature.

     

    Kitaabnama: Books and Beyond is an unfolding kaleidoscope of books, authors and readings, says Gokhale.

     

    The episodes feature a diverse range of celebrated names including Ashok Vajpeyi, Amish Tripathi, Geetanjalishree, Mahesh Dattani, Mahmood Farooqui, Uday Prakash, Urvashi Butalia, Advaita Kala and Lord Meghnad Desai.