Search
Sudhanva Deshpande
Sudhanva Deshpande is a leading theatre personality of India. Deshpande has been associated, as an actor and director, with Jana Natya Manch (Janam) (People’s Theatre Front) a radical theatre activist group, since 1987. He also heads Leftword Books, an independent publication, as its managing editor and May Day Bookstore and Café as a proprietor/barista. In his long association with Janam, Deshpande has acted in over 8000 performances of more than 60 street plays, directed more than 30 street plays, and conceptualized and written dozens of street and proscenium plays on issues of contemporary political and social relevance. Deshpande conceptualized the street play Yeh Dil Maange More, Guruji! (This Heart Desires More, Master!), an agit-prop street play, in response to the anti-minority, anti-Muslim pogroms of 2002 in the Indian state of Gujarat.