OLD WORLD CULTURE & theatre world
presents

PLAY...
BITTER CHOCOLATE
24 APRIL AT 7 PM.
A BILINGUAL SOLO BY ....LUSHIN DUBEY
SCRIPT, DIRECTION & DESIGN BY..... ARVIND GAUR
MUSIC BY........ DR. SANGEETA GAUR

AT HABITAT CENTRE , STAIN AUDITORIUM
TICKETS RS.200,RS.100,RS.50

ALL THE PROCEEDS OF THIS PLAY WILL GO TO NGO BUTTERFLIES.
TICKETS AVILABLE AT IHC

ANY INQUIRY CALL IHC PROGAMME DESK PH.51220007 EXT . CULTURE DEPT.
OR ARVIND GAUR 9312233561
mailto:arvindgaur@hotmail.com

NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

PLAY....... BITTER CHOCOLATE
There are many reasons for a tormented childhood .Sexual abuse is one , but it is never talked about , and because society has not address it for centuries,children during all the ages,and of all class,race and religions have continued to suffer. If suffering has to be alleviated,it must first be addresed, and that is the very purpose of theatre, to bring forth topics for debate and disscussion.
My attempt as a director through this play is merely to give the people a way to express, share and become more aware and alert about the problems we are living with and putting our children through.
The stories that I have chosen from Pinki Virani's book BITTER CHOCOLATE basically aim to show the different perspectives of the differnt characters, such as...children, women, advocates family and police.
The scriping and making of the play has been painful but the aspiration to remove the bitterness of the children's lives compelled me to move on.
Arvind Gaur , director,

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ...

Arvind Gaur who heads the Delhi ,India based Theatre group ASMITA is committed to innovative and socially relevant theatre. Starting off as a journalist and working for sometime for the electronic media, he set up ASMITA and earned a reputation in theatre circle in Delhi and outside.
In the past 12 years, he has directed 48 major plays which include Girish Karnad’s Tuglaq and Rakt Kalyan, Dharamveer Bharti’s Andha Yug, Swadesh deepak’s Court Martial, G P Deshpande’s Antim Divas, Albert Camus’ Caligula, Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions and Tara, Eugene O’neill ‘s Desire Under the Elms, Dario Fo’s An Accidental death of an Anarchist, Bertolt Brecht’s Good Woman of Setzuan and Caucasian chalk circle, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, John Octanasek’s Romeo Juliet and the darkness, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor. Also Vijay tendulakr’s Ghairam Kotwal, Munshi Premchand’s Moteram ka Satyagrah, Ashok Lal’s Ek Mamooli aadmi, Rajesh Kumar’s Me Gandhi Bolto ,Uday Prakash’s Waren Hastings ka Saand, Pinki Virani’s Bitter Chocolate ( solo by lushin dubey),Walking Through the Rainbow ( joint production with PCVC, solo by rashi bunny)
Arvind Gaur has been invited to perform in theater festivals organized by National School of Drama, (Bharat Rang Mahotsava), Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sahitya Kala Parisad,Nandikar and Vivachana Theatre Festival, Old World Theatre Festival,national school of drama week end theatre, and Muktibodh Natya Samaroh.
Arvind Gaur has conducted many theatre workshops and directed productions in different colleges in Delhi. Such as L.S.R., I.P., Gargi, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, hindu college,I.I.T.(Delhi), Aditi college and School of Planning and Architecture. Workshops for children in schools and slums as well as Street Theatre performances on different socio-political issues organized and conducted by Arvind Gaur are many in number.
He has also conducted theatre workshops for Actors and Directors at Houston, USA and India Habitat centre, New Delhi. He also performed various plays in collobration with culture organizations like Theatre World, Paridhi, bahroop, Rainbow Cavaliers and NGOs like Mobile Crèches, Action Aid , haq, pcvc, Deepalaya , Heinrich Boll Foundation ,Asian Social Forum and world social forum.
Director Arvind Gaur has also collaborated with various Theatre artists and Groups specially in exploring a new language for Solo performances. His latest ventures include ‘Women in Black’ by Bubbles Sabharwal and “Untitled Solo” by Lushin Dubey in collaboration with THEATRE WORLD. Not only have these plays received great audience response from important metropolis of India, “Women in black” was invited to perform in Dubai and “Untitled Solo” was performed in Chicago, Dallas, Washington DC, Boston, Rochester , San francisco, Ohio, Harvard university & Stratford in USA and at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival last year and recently at Nehru Centre, London.
Recently ASMITA collaborated with Banjara Theatre Group, IIT Kharagpur and came up with two unique design experiments, first Based on late shri Bhishma Sahni’s MADHAVI, second Onassis Awardee Manjula Padmanabhan's HIDDEN FIRES. these two solo are performed by Rashi Bunny, young actress trained in Theatre design at University of Alabama at Birmingham and Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Madhavi has travelled widely for variuos theatre festivals and has received great appreciation and recived best performance award at the International Solo Festival in Armenia in september 2004.


ABOUT ACTOR
LUSHIN DUBEY

Lushin Dubey did her Masters in Science in Childhood and Special Education in the US (after a Masters in History from Delhi, India) and was then deeply involved in teaching mentally challenged kids. In 1986 she set up Kids world with her cousin Bubbles Sabharwal… a pioneer of youth theatre in India.
In 1999 she produced 'Othello' and played the role of 'Desdemona' in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This production won the Fringe First. With Theatre World 'The Life of Gautama Buddha' travelled to Bodhgaya, Singapore and the US, "Untitled" directed by Arvind Gaur, to the US and Edinburgh, and now this production is stated to travel again to the US in March-April of this year. 'Untitled' makes its third trip to the U.S. in (October of this year, 2004, along with 'Bitter Chocolate' directed by Arvind Gaur). 'Untitled' has already completed 111 shows. 10 in Scotland. In the U.S. some of the cities have been Boston, Chicago, Rochester, New York, Dallas, Houston, Washington D.C., and Palo Alto San Francisco. It has also been staged at the Smithsonian Institute and at Harvard. Lushin has acted in several serials, latest being 'Kashmeer' on STAR PLUS and has completed acting in 4 films yet to be released. Her first one being 'Perfect Husband' which debuts this year (2004) at the Cannes Festival. Her latest film is 'Child Play' directed by Avijit Dutt and produced by Ayesha Shroff of Quest films.

Lushin is married with two daughters, Ilina and Tara. Her husband, Dr. Pradeep Dubey, Leading Professor in Applied Mathematics at Stonybrook and Adjunct Professor at Yale, has always supported her creative endeavours. She divides her time between the US and India and looks forward to being involved in cultural interaction between the two countries, especially via the medium of theatre.