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.
Mysore Shrinivas Sathyu is a film director, stage designer and art director from India. He is best known for his directorial Garm Hava (1973), which was based on the partition of India. He was awarded Padma Shri in 1975.
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.
Utpal Dutt was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the "Little Theatre Group" in 1949. This group enacted many English, Shakespearean and Brecht plays, in a period now known as the "Epic theatre" period, before it immersed itself completely in highly political and radical theatre. His plays became an apt vehicle for the expression of his Marxist ideologies, visible in socio-political plays such as Kallol (1965), Manusher Adhikar, Louha Manob (1964), Tiner Toloar and Maha-Bidroha. He also acted in over 100 Bengali and Hindi films in a career spanning 40 years, and remains most known for his roles in films such as Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969), Satyajit Ray’s Agantuk (1991), Gautam Ghose’s Padma Nadir Majhi (1992) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's breezy Hindi comedies such as Gol Maal (1979) and Rang Birangi (1983). He also did the role of a sculptor, Sir Digindra Narayan, in the episode Seemant Heera of Byomkesh Bakshi on Doordarshan in 1993, shortly before his death.
Rai Chand Boral was an Indian composer, considered by music connoisseurs to be the Bhishma Pitamah, the father of film music in India.
Jukti Takko Aar Gappo is a 1974 Bengali film directed by auteur of Indian cinema Ritwik Ghatak. Jukti Takko Aar Gappo was Ritwik Ghatak's last film. The film was believed to have a cinematography way ahead of its time. The film won National Film Award's Rajat Kamal Award for Best Story in 1974.
Sabitri Chatterjee is an Indian actress who is known for her work in Bengali theatre and cinema. Her career spans more than 60 years. She is the recipient of BFJA Awards for two times. In 1999, she was conferred with Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for acting in Bengali theatre. In 2013, she was awarded by the Government of West Bengal its highest civilian award; the Banga Bibhushan. In 2014, Government of India conferred upon her its fourth-highest civilian award the Padma Shri.
Calcutta 71 is a 1972 Bengali film directed by noted Indian art film director Mrinal Sen. This film is considered to be the second film of Mrinal Sen's Calcutta trilogy, the other two being Interview, and Padatik. The film is a collection of stories depicting the 1970s. The Naxalite movement, starvation of common people, and social and political corruption are shown. There are four stories shown in the film.
Haradhan Bandopadhyay was a Bengali Indian actor of television and films. He made his debut in the 1948 Bengali film Devdut, directed by Atanu Bandopadhyay. He worked with some of the most prominent directors of Bengali cinema, like Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen.
The group theatre of Kolkata refers to a tradition in theatres in the Indian city Kolkata, which developed in the 1940s as an alternative to entertainment-oriented theatres. As opposed to commercial theatres, group theatre is "a theatre that is not professional or commercial", characterized by its tendency for experimentation in theme, content and production, and its aim of using the proscenium stage to highlight social messages, rather than having primarily making-money objectives.
Shobha Sen was an Indian theatre and film actress in Bengali theatre and Bengali cinema.
Swatilekha Sengupta was a Bengali actress. She had received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Indian theatre as an actor.
Paran Bandopadhyay is an Indian Bengali film, television and stage actor based in Kolkata. He has worked with Bengali film director Sandip Ray, the son of filmmaker and author Satyajit Ray.
Tapas Sen was a noted Indian stage lighting designer, who was an important figure in 20th-century Indian theatre. He started working with Bengali theatre movement in Kolkata in the late 1940s, along with noted directors, Utpal Dutt and Shambhu Mitra. Later he became a founding member of the Indian People's Theatre Association's (IPTA), Delhi chapter, and worked closely with Hindi theatre. Through his career stretching five decades he worked theatre directors, Ebrahim Alkazi, Vijay Tendulkar, and also dancers Sadhana Bose, Chandralekha, Birju Maharaj and Kelucharan Mahapatra. He was known not only for his creative stage lighting, but also had a significant impact on the work of leading theatre director of the time.
Mysore Venkatappa Subbaiah Naidu was an Indian theatre and film actor. He was well known for his work in films like Sati Sulochana (1934)—the first Kannada talkie film, Bhookailas (1940) in Telugu, and Bhakta Prahlada (1958) in Kannada. He acted in the first Kannada talkie film and brought distinction to Kannada cinema. He was the father of Kannada actor Lokesh and the grandfather of Kannada TV personality Srujan Lokesh. Recognizing his work in theatre, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1961.
Shekhar Chatterjee (1924–1990) was an Indian actor and film director.
Kuheli is a 1971 Bengali suspense thriller movie directed by Tarun Majumdar. The film stars Biswajit Chatterjee, Sandhya Roy, Sumita Sanyal, Debashree Roy, Chhaya Devi, Ajitesh Bandopadhyay, Satya Bandyopadhyay, Shekhar Chatterjee, Utpal Dutt, Rabi Ghosh and Subhendu Chatterjee. Music director of the movie was Hemanta Mukherjee.
Satya Bandyopadhyay was an Indian actor, known for his work in Bengali cinema and theatre. He acted in over 300 movies, in numerous plays and performed frequently on the radio.
Bibhash Chakraborty is an Indian Bengali actor and theatre personality. He is also a social activist. He is a prolific writer too. He was associated with Paschim Banga Natya Akademi for many years.
Subbu Arumugam was an Indian musician, writer and Villupattu theatre art exponent. In 2021, he was awarded India's fourth-highest civilian award the Padma Shri in the Arts and Literature category. He published 15 books containing Villu Pattu narratives, songs, short stories and novels such as Veera Pandia Kattabomman. Some of his published notable works are Noolaga Villisai, Ramayanam, and Villisai Mahabharatham.
