Bansi Kaul was an Indian theatre director and the founder of Rang Vidushak, a theatre group in Bhopal. He was a recipient of the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honor, in 2014, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1995. Some of his notable plays included Aala Afsar, Kahan Kabir, and Sidhi Dar Sidhi urf Tukke pe Tukka. He was a designer and associate show director for the 2010 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony and also the art director for the 1986 and 1987 Khajuraho Festival.
SoumitraChatterjee was an Indian film actor, play-director, playwright, writer, thespian and poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. He is best known for his collaborations with director Satyajit Ray, with whom he worked in fourteen films.
Babukodi Venkataramana Karanth widely known as B. V. Karanth was an Indian film director, playwright, actor, screenwriter, composer, and dramatist known for his works in the Kannada theatre, Kannada cinema, and Hindi cinema. One of the pioneers of the Parallel Cinema, Karanth was an alumnus of the National School of Drama (1962) and later, its Director. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1976), six National Film Awards, and the civilian honor Padma Shri for his contributions towards the field of art.
Prasanna, is a major Indian theatre director and playwright from Karnataka. He is one of the pioneers of modern Kannada theatre. He graduated from the National School of Drama (NSD). He founded Samudaya and gave a creative direction to Kannada theatre in the 1970s with other activists. Prasanna lives in Heggodu in Karnataka. He is known for his organisational skills and new ideas and innovations in theatre. He is a Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee. He has directed plays for National School of Drama, Ninasam, Rangamandal-Bhopal, Rangayana and worked with many theatre organizations of India. He elected as National President of Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA).
Zia Fariduddin Dagar was an Indian classical vocalist belonging to the Dhrupad tradition, the oldest existing form of north Indian classical music. He was part of the Dagar family of musicians.
Arundhati Nag is an Indian actress. She has been involved with multilingual Theatre in India, for over 25 years, first in Mumbai where she got involved with Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), and did various productions in Gujarati, Marathi, and Hindi theatre, and then in Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and English, in Bangalore.
Ratan Thiyam is an Indian playwright and theatre director, and the winner of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987, one of leading figures of the "theatre of roots" movement in Indian theatre, which started in the 1970s. Also known as Thiyam Nemai, Ratan Thiyam is known for writing and staging plays that use ancient Indian theatre traditions and forms in a contemporary context. A former painter, and proficient in direction, design, script and music, Thiyam is often considered one of leading contemporary theatre gurus.
Surekha Sikri was an Indian actress widely known for her performance in theatre, films and television. She has received several awards, including a Filmfare Award and three National Film Awards.
Manohar Singh was an Indian theatre actor-director and character actor in Hindi films. He is best known for his performances in films such as Party (1984) and Daddy (1989). Starting his acting career from theatre, he went on to become a theatre director and later the chief of National School of Drama Repertory Company, 1976 to 1988, before switching to cinema. As a theatre actor his best known performances were in Tughlaq, directed by Ebrahim Alkazi; Himmat Mai and Begum Barve by Nissar and Amal Allana.
Habib Tanvir was one of the most popular Indian Urdu, Hindi playwrights, a theatre director, poet and actor. He was the writer of plays such as, Agra Bazar (1954) and Charandas Chor (1975). A pioneer in Urdu and Hindi theatre, he was most known for his work with Chhattisgarhi tribals, at the Naya Theatre, a theatre company he founded in 1959 in Bhopal. He went on to include indigenous performance forms such as nacha, to create not only a new theatrical language, but also milestones such as Charandas Chor, Gaon ka Naam Sasural, Mor Naam Damad and Kamdeo ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna.
Barry John is a British-born, Indian theatre director and teacher. He has nothing to do with Barry John Acting Studio. He has resigned BJAS in 2019. Now he is the face of "The Free Birds Collective" an actor training institute in Mumbai. He was the Founder-Director of 'Theatre Action Group' (TAG) (1973), one of the early theatre groups based in Delhi.
Uttara Baokar was an Indian stage, film, and television actress. She acted in several notable plays, such as Padmavati in Mukyhamantri, Mena in Mena Gurjari, Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello, the mother in playwright Girish Karnad's Tughlaq, the nautch girl in Chhote Saiyad Bade Saiyad, and the lead role of Umrao in Umrao Jaan. In 1978, she directed Jaywant Dalvi's play Sandhya Chhaya, translated to Hindi by Kusum Kumar.
Kumar Roy (1926–2010) was a Bengali theatre actor, director and playwright. In 1983 he won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. He was associated with the group Bohurupee. In 1989 he directed the re-creation of the classic play Nabanna (1948). He was the President of the PashchimBanga Natya Akademi from 2006 till his death in 2010. Kumar Roy was also Professor of Drama at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata and Visiting Professor at Sangeet Bhavan, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.
Shekhar Sen is a singer, a music composer, a lyricist, and an actor.
Rita Ganguly is an exponent in the Indian classical arts. An accomplished dancer, musician and vocalist, she was honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2000 and with the Padma Shri in 2003. She is the mother of actress Meghna Kothari and the younger sister of the famous Ravindra Sangeet singer Gita Ghatak.
Waman Kendre is an Indian theatre director and academician. He has previously served as the Director of National School of Drama, (NSD) New Delhi from August 2013 to September 2018. He is married to Actress Gauri Kendre and also has a son
Jatin Goswami is an Indian dancer and choreographer, known as one of the prominent exponents of the classical dance form of Sattriya. He is the founder director of Sattriya Akademi, Guwahati, a sitting member of its Advisory Committee, and a former member of the General Council of the Sangeet Natak Akademi. He is also the founder of Alok Shilpi Sangha, a dance academy and Pragjyoti Kala Parishad, a cultural organization, and is a recipient of the 2004 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2008, for his contributions to Sattriya dance.
Markand Jashbhai Bhatt was an Indian Gujarati theatre actor and director. Born and studied in Vadodara, he taught theatre for more than thirty years at M. S. University. He acted in and directed several Gujarati plays.
Satyabrata Rout is an Indian theatre director Scenographer, Author and theatre academician. He is a former faculty member of the National School of Drama. At present, he is a professor and Head of the department of Theatre at University of Hyderabad, India. He is known for his contribution toward Visual theatre in India.
Brijeshwar Singh, is a writer, poet and theatre promoter based in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India. His patronage and promotion of theatre through the Rang Vinayak Rang Mandal theatre repertoire and the annual theatre festival being organized in his own Windermere Theatre earned him the U.P. Sangeet Natak Academy award for 2020. His Daya Drishti Charitable Trust helps children born with thalassemia avail regular and lifesaving transfusions. His second book 'Next Patient, Please' was released on 26 March 2022. He was featured among top 75 personalities of Rohilkhand region of Uttar Pradesh by Amar Ujala. The list was published on the 75th foundation day of the newspaper.
