Out Of Office: Yudhishthir Agrawal

Yudhishthir Agrawal is a strategic planner at DDB Mudra Group. In the fall of 2008, he was studying business (MBA) as an exchange student at Cornell University in the USA. Concurrently, he attended a playwriting course which is where he workshopped the play 'Scarborough Fair'. Later he joined Mudra and settled down in Mumbai. Along with Spandan Mishra from Rediffusion, he created a pool of actors and theatre allies. In June of 2011, Agrawal was rehearsing the play on the top of a terrace in Bandra. The play premiered at the NCPA in end of 2011. And now, the play is being re-staged at the Kala Ghoda festival.

Agrawal’s play could make for interesting viewing. It tells the multi-layered story of a playwright (Samarth) who battles to answer life's inevitable question - does passion hurt or does it really heal? It’s a coming of age story of heart-break and reconciliation. Agrawal who plays Samarth, besides having penned and directed the play, has attempted to create a visual impetus to the scenes through multi-disciplinary inputs like A/V, live painting and sequences with trained dances. Above all, there's music which includes the ballads of Simon and Garfunkel (which is how the play gets its title). 

Agrawal, who was busy preparing for “a big pitch” scheduled for the day after we met him, said: “The play is an original experimental. I say experimental as it involves a combination of various media. I would call it a creative collaboration of young artists, writers, musicians, poets and dancers performing together on one stage.” The team for the play are old and current employees of Mudra, students graduated from MICA, media professionals and other agencies (Rediffusion, AXN, Heinz).

Besides looking forward to the Kala Ghoda show, Agrawal is planning to write another play this year.

Details of Last Minute Production’s 'Scarborough Fair':

Venue: Gallery Beyond, at the Kala Ghoda Festival
Date and time: 9 February (Thursday) at 7pm