About
Three plays since 2012, each made by a different grouping around a constant preoccupation: what theatre can be for a child who does not yet have language, and who is nobody's beginner.
On the name
In most Indian classrooms, “pin drop silence” is something demanded of children. We have never asked for it, and the plays do not depend on it — our audiences are free to move, to make noise, to turn away and come back.
But every so often a room of two-year-olds goes so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Not because anyone insisted. Because they decided to watch. That silence is theirs to give, and it is the only evidence we trust.
Where the work has been
The work has been performed at AHA!, the Theatre for Children Festival in Bengaluru, where Bends & Flows opened in 2012; at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa; at TIFLI, the Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences in Delhi; and at Bengaluru Hubba. Most recently all three plays ran together over a weekend at Atta Galatta, Bengaluru, in August 2026.
[[Add anything missing, and the years for each — the poster lists the festivals but not the dates.]]
Who assembled for which play
Not a standing company — a different grouping each time, around a constant core.
| Person | Stories in Half | Dinner is at 8 | Bends & Flows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subhashim Goswami Direction | ● | ● | ● |
| Samta Shikhar Performer | ● | ● | ● |
| Ashwini Kumar Chakre Performer, co-direction | ● | ● | · |
| Apoorva Arthur Performer | ● | · | · |
| Pratyush Singh Performer | · | ● | · |
| Shrunga B.V. Performer | · | · | ● |
The people
A sociologist and a practising theatre artist. As a sociologist he is interested in questions of methodology, ethnography, visuality, and the interface between art and research; as a theatre artist he makes plays for toddlers — plays for children under three to watch.
Over the last decade and more he has made three toddler plays, staged at theatre venues and arts festivals across the country.
Bends & Flows · Stories in Half · Dinner is at 8
A theatre pedagogue and actor who has worked with children as a theatre facilitator for more than a decade, nationally and internationally. Her approach to theatre with and for children has been shared in workshops and through performances with children, teachers, artists and pedagogues.
She makes plays with children and acts in plays for children, and creates work for toddlers. She currently heads the theatre department at Head Start Educational Academy, Bengaluru.
Bends & Flows · Stories in Half · Dinner is at 8
A theatre practitioner, writer and director, and one of the founding members of Mashaal Theatre Troupe in Bengaluru. He has worked in theatre since 2004 — across acting, writing and directing, and across proscenium, public and alternative spaces — for audiences ranging from adults to children and the early years.
He was part of Directors Lab 2013 at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York, and trained in playwriting at Writers Bloc IV, organised by Rage Theatre in association with the Royal Court Theatre, London. He also works in education as a theatre pedagogue and teacher, with a particular interest in mathematics.
Stories in Half · Dinner is at 8
A theatre-maker and a designer. He began in theatre in college in 2001, co-founded Mashaal Theatre Troupe in Bengaluru in 2006, and in 2015 founded Mithya Labs, a software development company, where he is design head.
Both practices ask him the same question: how people meet a thing that has been made for them. In theatre for the very young the question doubles, because every performance plays to two audiences at once — the child, and the adult who carried them in. The play is not for one over the shoulder of the other.
Dinner is at 8
An actor, puppeteer and actor trainer based in Bengaluru, who also narrates audiobooks and works as a translator. He was introduced to theatre in 2004, and has since worked with many companies and with renowned directors across India and Germany.
He won Best Actor at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards in 2019, and was a fellow of the Theatertreffen at the Berliner Festspiele in 2021.
Bends & Flows
A theatre artist, percussionist, actor trainer and Kalaripayattu practitioner. She began at Ranga Shankara in Bengaluru, trained with Kanhailal and Ima Sabitri at Kalakshetra Manipur, and worked at Adishakti Theatre Laboratory in Pondicherry, performing in Veenapani Chawla’s The Tenth Head and Ganapati and facilitating its Source of Performance Energy workshop for eight years.
She is the first woman to formally study the Mizhav at Kerala Kalamandalam — the copper drum of Koodiyattam, Kerala’s Sanskrit theatre. Her own practice, Axis Fluidity, brings Kalaripayattu into dialogue with breath, movement and sound.
Stories in Half
[[Add anyone missing — designers, lighting, sound, production. Virginia Rodrigues is credited as production manager on Dinner is at 8; Abhaydev Praful, Manju Narayan, Bharath Raavudi, Amit Mahanti, Aastha and Sanjay Bharadwaj on Stories in Half.]]