Sudhanva Deshpande, actor and director with Jana Natya Manch, New Delhi at the IFA office for the first in the series of MaathuKathes in our Theatre Month!

Theatre lovers, acting enthusiasts, performers and all of you are invited to join as Sudhanva speaks about his journey in theatre, his experiences with street theatre, and 'The JaNaM of Studio Safdar.'

Sudhanva is an actor and director with Jana Natya Manch (Janam), a radical political theatre collective based in New Delhi. He has been involved in the creation of dozens of street, proscenium and other performances, and has lectured and led workshops in institutions across India, as well as in Germany, Poland, the US and UK. He has held teaching positions at the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad) and the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre (Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi).

Sudhanva writes on theatre and politics, and has edited Theatre of the Streets: The Jana Natya Manch Experience (Janam 2007) and co-edited Our Stage: The Pleasures and Perils of Theatre Practice in India Today (Tulika 2009). He has co-directed two documentary films on Naya Theatre and Habib Tanvir. He is a member of the Core Team of the India Theatre Forum. Since 1999, he has headed LeftWord Books, an independent publishing house, as Managing Editor, as well as May Day Bookstore and Cafe since 2012. He has been involved in the conceptualisation, creation, administration and programming of Studio Safdar, Shadi Khampur. His default mode of transport is the bicycle.