Ramu Ramanathan

Ramu Ramanathan
Ramu Ramanathan
Born	29 December 1967 (age 56); Kolkata, India
Nationality	Indian
Education	Bachelor of Science, Chemistry, University of Mumbai, 1988
Spouse	Kinnari Vohra
Website	placesotherthanthis.blogspot.com

Ramakrishnan Ramanathan, known as Ramu Ramanathan, is an Indian playwright and director. He has written plays including Mahadevbhai, Cotton 56, Polyester 84, Jazz, Comrade Kumbhakarna, and Postcards From Bardoli.

His book 3, Sakina Manzil And Other Plays,^[1] is a collection of eight plays, published by Orient Blackswan in collaboration with the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU).^[2]

Besides playwriting, Ramanathan is the editor of PrintWeek and WhatPackaging? magazines. He has been associated with the print industry for 30 years.^[3]

He is the author of three books. 3, Sakina Manzil And Other Plays which is a collection of eight plays. And, two collections of poems, My Encounters with a Peacock and To Sit on A Stone - And Other Shorts.^[4] In addition, he pens columns for newspapers.

He has also co-edited Book Binding with Adhesives along with P Sajith and Babri Masjid, 25 Years ... along with Irfan Engineer and Sameena Dalwai.

Early life[edit]

Ramanathan was born on 29 December 1967 in Kolkata and later moved to Mumbai. He completed his schooling from St. Stanislaus High School, Mumbai. In 1987, Ramanathan graduated from Mithibai College with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He wrote his first one-act play in the same year, I am I. Later, he completed his Diploma in Journalism from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai and MA in English Literature from the University of Mumbai.

Later, Ramanathan wrote 13 one-act plays for inter-collegiate competitions. Also he has written radio plays and radio documentaries for AIR (produced by S D Prins, a rare motivated officer in Akashvani). Along with Sunil Shanbag, he explored alternative spaces for plays on top of a water tank at the YWCA in Andheri which was transformed into an amphitheatre. Also, he founded and organised the IIT Theatre Fest in 2006 along with Raja Mohanty at the IDC in IIT. For ten years he edited a theatre journal for Prithvi Theatre called PT Notes which was published by Sanjna Kapoor. Later he co-edited the eSTQ bulletin from 2005. He ran a play-reading movement for more many years in which unperformed, unpublished plays (more than 75 plays in English, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi) were read in front of an invited audience.

Publications[edit]

Combat, published by National School of Drama (2003)
Collaborators And Mahadevbhai, Sahitya Akademi (2006)
Tathasthu ("So Be It"), in The Little Magazine (2010)has
Mahadevbhai (in Marathi), Popular Prakashan (2011)
3 Sakina Manzil and Other Plays (in English), Orient Blackswan (2012) - An anthology of eight plays: Shanti, Shanti It’s A War; The Boy Who Stopped Smiling; Curfew; Mahadevbhai (1892–1942); Collaborators; 3, Sakina Manzil; Shakespeare And She; Jazz.
Book Binding with Adhesives along with Tony Clark and P Sajith
My Encounters With a Peacock, Red River (2017)
Babri Masjid, 25 Years .. along with along with Irfan Engineer and Sameena Dalwai (Gyan Prakashan) (2017)
To Sit on A Stone - And Other Shorts, Red River (2020)
Mumbai Murmurings: 213* Tiny Tales of Theatre (Manipal Universal Press) (2023)
Two plays: Cotton 56, Polyester 84 and Comrade Kumbhakarna, Red River (2023)

Theatre experience[edit]

In 1993, Ramanathan wrote Shanti, Shanti, It's A War (Best Play at The Hindu - All India Playscript Competition). This was produced by Madras Players. The play was penned in 1992, within the first ten days after 6 December.

In the mid-nineties, he wrote and directed a Gripp's play (a children's play) The Boy Who Stopped Smiling which performed 150-odd shows. More than one hundred of these shows were organized by Sanjna Kapoor, the producer of the play, who created a theatre network across the country.

Ramanathan directed Vaikom Mohammed Basheer’s Me Grandad ‘Ad An Elephant, and later Marguerite Duras’ L’amante Anglaise (both with university students) and Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and Jean Genet’s Deathwatch and Vaclav Havel’s Audience and a play called Nothing (for V Theatre Group).

Similarly, his collaboration with a group of architecture students resulted in three plays and another piece called PM @ 3 pm. This group hosted a 7-day workshops on set design and theatre aesthetics, and fabricated four model sets of King Lear, for four language theatres’ directors in Mumbai. Later, the group staged three student productions: Yaar, What’s the Capital of Manipur!; The Sanjivani Super Show; Medha and Zoombish – II.

Ramu Ramanathan has conducted workshops for students and taught at KRIVIA, IDC (IIT Powai), University of Mumbai, Symbiosis (Pune), and has been associated with at least 20 educational institutes across the country.

Playwriting[edit]

Title	Year	Acclamation
I Am I; What It Is; Gagan Mahal; Etc.	(1987 to 1993)	Award-winning inter-collegiate one-act plays
Nothing – A Play Without Words	1990
Shanti, Shanti, It’s A War	1993	All India Best Play Award awarded by The Hindu
The Boy Who Stopped Smiling	1998
Curfew	1999	Premiered at the Prithvi Theatre Festival
The Travel Show	2000	Premiered at the Prithvi Theatre Festival
Yaar, What’s The Capital Of Manipur!	2002
Combat	2002	Premiered at the Kala Ghoda Festival
Mahadevbhai 1892-1942	2002
Collaborators	2003	Regional Award Winner of the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition
Medha And Zoombish	2004
3, Sakina Manzil	2004
Chello Ank(in Gujarati)	2004	Bagged the best play award for the Bhupen Khakkhar Playwriting Competition organised by Mumbai Samachar, Friends of Bhupen Khakkar, Image Publications and Coffee Mates.
Cotton 56, Polyester 84	2006	Bagged the META best play and best playwright award^[5]
Three Ladies Of Ibsen	2006
Medha And Zoombish II	2007
Shakespeare And She	2008
Jazz	2008
Kashmir Kashmir	2009
Comrade Kumbhakarna	2011
The Diary Of A Word	2012
Postcards From Bardoli	2013

Theatrical adaptations[edit]

Title	Year	Adapted from
Translator Of Ded Inch Upar (Into English)	1997	Hindi original by Nirmal Verma
L’ Amante Anglaise (In English)	2002	Based on French play by Marguerite Duras
Steppenwolf	2002	Based on Herman Hesse’s novel in German. Staged as part of the Herman Hesse Celebrations at Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai
The Train To Argentina	2002	Theatrical adaptation of play by Thuppatan
Gandhi Katha	2003
The Sanjivani Super Show	2004	Adaptation of Adya Rangacharya’s Kannada play, SANJIVANI
A Play About A Painter	2004	Edoardo Erba’s Italian drama

Direction[edit]

Title	Year	Notes
Krapp’s Last Tape	1989	Playwright: Samuel Beckett
Deathwatch	1991	Playwright: Jean Genet
Audience And Mistake (actor &c-Director)	1994	Playwright: Vaclav Havel
Credit Titles	1997	Playwright: Vijay Padki. A staged play-reading
The Boy Who Stopped Smiling	1998
Me Grandad ‘Ad An Elephant	1998	Theatrical adaptation of the Malayalam novella by Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, into a dramatized presentation (Group co-ordination & direction) 1998-99
Angst. Angst. Coontah. Coontah. Boom. Bam. Dhandal. Dhamaal. Kaput. (Concept And Direction)	2001	Premiered at TECHFEST, IIT Mumbai
Time To Tell A Tale	2001	Co-produced with Katha Publishing and SNDT, University
Yaar, What’s The Capital Of Manipur!	2002	Co-produced by Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture
Mahadevbhai 1892–1942	2002	Premiered at the Prithvi Theatre Festival 2002
L’ Amante Anglaise (in English)	2002	Co-produced by Alliance Francaise, Mumbai
The Train To Argentina	2002	Premiered at the Varkhari Kerala Theatre Festival in Mumbai, on 25 December 2002
Gandhi Katha	2003	Staged reading, premiered at the Gujarati Forbes Sabha’s book launch of Narayan Desai’s four-volume biography on Mahatma Gandhi, in Mumbai on 2 October 2003
The Sanjivani Super Show	2004	Staged during the 100th Birth Anniversary of the Adya Rangacharya, at Mysore Association, Mumbai
Collaborators	2003
A Play About A Painter	2004	Edoardo Erba’s Italian drama
Medha And Zoombish	2004
Arabian Night	2004	Play by Ronald Schimmelpfennig
Medha And Zoombish II	2007
Shakespeare And She	2008