MEMOIR
Thinking Out of the Box Abhishek Pattnaik
Out of the Box productions just completed their 25th show of Two Adorable Losers which is no mean feat for a young theatre group in a city where creativity and passion mean nothing without answering the question of sustainability. Abhishek tells us their story... Let’s get into theatre. Uh….But we don’t know anything about theatre! So let’s make a play about ourselves – People who don’t know anything about theatre. ‘Little did they know’ - our first play, was birthed out of that simplistic desire to plunge into the exciting world of theatre. We decided to name our company ‘Out of the Box Productions’. We soon learnt that theatre is about more than just writing, acting, direction, lights and set design but that there are many more elements involved in creating a play. The eagerness of being part of this dramatic world made us choose to throw ourselves right in the middle of the field and test our capabilities to the fullest. Of course we made mistakes but our inexperience also proved to be a strength. Four years later, things have changed. After having
read several plays, watching even more, meeting teachers with a background of literature and theatre, we have learnt a lot. There will always be scope for improvement but we are slowly getting familiar with this medium. Our last two plays ‘786’ and ‘Two adorable Losers’ have been a real morale booster for us. There was a time when we didn’t know whether we were good enough and neither did we have venues to perform. This led us to make the decision to enter ‘786’ for Thespo to prove to ourselves that we were worthy of being a successful theatre company. I can never forget the call I got from Murtuza, my director, when he broke the news to me of ‘786’ getting selected for Thespo 15. I had never known that kind of joy before. Step 1 had been accomplished! ‘786’ was followed by ‘Two adorable Losers’, our most well received production till date which