British Council to launch app based on Shakespearean play in India
29 August, Ahmedabad
The British Council in India will soon launch an interesting mobile app ‘mix the play’ using which anyone can play the role of a director of a popular Shakespearean play.
The most interesting part of the app is that the whole sequence of shoots for it has been done in India.
Addressing a press conference here the new director of British Council in India, Alan Gemmell Obe Monday said that the app would be launched in October-November this year.
Roysten Abel, a noted Indian theatre director and playwright, known for devised theater and plays involving folk performers has been roped to shoot for it.
“It will be based on a popular Shakespearean play. There will just be once scene of it which is being shot using Indian actors in Indian locations under the directorship of Abel. The app user will have over a 100 possible options to move on while making his own version of the scene playing as a director of sorts,” he said, adding that Shakespeare is one of the playwright who has an universal appeal and is equally liked in India.
“Using pre-recorded film samples and effects, locations, costume options, the app user would be given a range of elements to control, including a selection or all of casting, setting, direction of the actors, background music etc. Audiences will need to consider meaning, symbolism, tone, and storytelling, and will learn through trying and doing. The objective of the app is to engage audiences with Shakespeare and educate them about theater direction in a fun way,” Mr Obe said.
He said that it was being designed to make newer mobile savvy Indian generation about the great playwright on the occasion of the completion of the 400 years of his death anniversary.
Notably, a native of Kerala, Abel had won several awards including a Fringe First Award at Edinburgh and is well known for his productions like Othello in Black and White, Flowers, The Manganiyar Seduction, and A Hundred Snake Charmers.
A British version of mix the play based on ‘A Mid Summer Nights Dream’ will offer digital audiences the chance to play director of this one of Shakespeare’s most loved plays. Visitors to the mix the play website are invited to make a short film from a scene in A Mid Summer Nights Dream.”
The duration of a scene is under 3 minutes. The launch of an Indian commission of the play with a different Shakespeare play will be done in October-November, Mr Alan said.