THE AUDITION WEEKEND !!!

Hello everyone!

So this weekend (8th and 9th September), since there are no memos, no speaking rounds and no submissions, we thought it would be really nice to have some fun :)

Cultural Committee is utilizing this sweet time gap to present to you, the greatest, the most awesome, the most ridiculously exciting weekend of all time. All the three auditions, in one weekend! Yes, you read it right, ALL THREE OF THEM in one weekend! Most of you must be thinking, why this much awesomeness in one weekend, for them we have just one answer, because we can! So get ready to sing, dance and paint.

8th September, Saturday, 2:00 pm (deadline for submission)- Fine Arts Audition

8th September, Saturday, 6:00 pm- Vocals Audition

9th September, Sunday, 6:00 pm- Dance Audition

The rules for each audition are as follows:

Eastern Vocal Rules:

Participants per team: Solo + 1 accompanist (Optional) (Use of karaoke is prohibited, but you can use a recording of a single instrument)

Time duration: min: 2 minutes; max: 6 minutes

Judging criteria:

• Voice quality, clarity, vocal range, song selection and the overall impact of the song.
• Both Classical song and light eastern non-classical song tracks of any language allowed to be sung. Folk allowed.
• No instruments would be provided and have to be arranged on your own.
• In case of any technical fault, timers shall be reset and the participant will be allowed to perform from the beginning.
• The decision of the judges and organizers will be Final and binding.

Western Vocal Rules:

Participants per team: Solo + 1 accompanist (Optional) (Use of karaoke is prohibited, but you can use a recording of a single instrument)

Time duration: min: 2 minutes; max: 6 minutes

Judging criteria: the same rules as Eastern except that song should be western.

Dance Audition Rules:

1. Participants can either give a solo performance or perform in a group. In case of a group performance, participants will be marked individually.

2. The minimum duration of performance - 2 minutes and maximum - 4 minutes. There will be penalty for overshooting the time limit.

3. Performance can be of western or ethnic genres, or even fusion of both.

4. Judging criteria include choreography, stage presence and costume.

5. Bring your own music on pen drive.

6.Participants can audition for both the eastern and western team, but will have to prepare two separate performances for the same.

Fine Arts Audition:

The theme for the audition is "NUJS". You can sketch, draw, make cartoons, posters or express the theme in any creative way possible.

So unleash the creative genius in you!! Even if you are not participating, come there and support your friends and enjoy the performances!

Hope to see you all there :)

Theatre Auditions 2012-13 !!

The day I walked into NUJS, I had various first impressions of the students - brainy, some brawny, beautiful and witty. But never did I think they'd be dramatic. Well, when you think 'law school', you don't really think 'theatrics', do you?

But on 30th July, this bunch of theatre enthusiasts surprised me, and the audience too.

The first round, the monologue, started off with Anish from the third year, doing a literally wicked rendition of the devil, entertaining and amusing. Mansi from the second year did a touching scene from the movie, Dor, spell-binding and mesmerizing the audience. Next, we had Meenakshi, who portrayed an amusing role of a gorgeous woman, who had men fighting for her attention. Then the audience enjoyed disarmingly witty, satirical self-penned monologues and impromptu's delivered by Anirudh Vohra and Joachim Saldanha, and a rather crazy, toe-curling performance by Swaroop, who acted as a drug addict, writhing on stage and screaming, leaving us all quite spooked, quite impressed. There was a hilarious satirical monologue about how wives constantly, inexplicably "collect things", by Srishti Goyal, who was very much in character with her bushy moustache, as the distressed husband of a wife with an OCD for collections. From the first years, Archit Krishna did a scene from a play which depicts the anger of the common man against corruption, and he performed it with such expertise, such rawness, that the audience shivered at his every word. Then up came Akshaya, portraying a hilarious British actress rehearsing for a role in a play by Shaw, making the students laugh and roar in applause. We had Jessamine do Lady Macbeth's sleep-walking scene from the Shakespearean play, spine-chilling and brilliant. Shakespeare was a popular choice this year, with various renditions of Caesar, Caesar, and, um.. Caesar. Hang on, Aishwaria Iyer did a dialogue from Merchant of Venice, with amazing vocal transitions. We had enactments from movies like Any Given Sunday and Singing in the Rain. Finally, Surbhi Dhar played a serial killer, with a love for 6-foot tall men in suits, and Inderjeet Sircar (Pipo), doing a stand-up comedy, bringing a rib-cracking funny end to the first round.

Due to the long list of enthusiastic participants (there were twenty-four, might I add) the second round only started at around ten. The second round was the group round, where the participants were given certain topics, and had to perform a skit in about fifteen minutes, with ten minutes prep time and about three minutes of performance. Since we were short of time, every group had to hurriedly perform their skit, resulting in hilarious errors and omissions, and strange unrehearsed dialogues. It was a hilarious ordeal, with one group acting out auditions, another as Project Majnu, the moral police, and another as our very own NUJS, with a visitor as our very own - Mamta Bannerjee. Hysterical, would be the right word to describe this round.

Well, for all you awesome aspiring actors and actresses out there, those who were there with us for the auditions, thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to witness your brilliance, and the ones who missed out, make sure you try out for the team next year !!

And the NUJS University Theatre Team 2012-13 is:

POOL A

Aishwaria Iyer
Akshaya Venkataraman
Anirudh Vohra
Archit Krishna
Arindrajeet Basu
Devhuti Shaw
Joachim Saldhana
Mansi Jhaveri
Srishti Goyal
Tapobrata

POOL B

Issac John
Meenakshi Kurpad
Paavni Anand
Satchit Bhogle
Surabhi Dhar

Shruti Nanivadekar......

"God" - Comedy, Confusion and Drama

24 July, 2012 - the day God came to NUJS... 

“Every good play has to have a good beginning, a middle and an end.” (– Hepatitis, in God by Woody Allen)… Or does it?

Delightfully confusing and refreshingly comic, the play "God", a Barnstormers Production, opened to a full house on Tuesday evening with the stage set up as the entrance of Sardi's, Broadway and 45th street, the New York theatre hub.

Curtains were raised and the audience, that had been waiting with bated breath, broke into applause as two of our leads, Greeks, Hepatitis (Aniket Ghosh) and Diabetes (Joachim Saldanha) walked onto the stage engaged in a very intense conversation about the ending of the play Hepatitis was scripting for a drama festival.  An ending that neither of the two seem to concur upon. This debate goes on until Diabetes points how both of them were fictional and were characters in a play. And this leads to an extremely amusing situation where Hepatitis decides to address the audience of the play in which he was a fictional character (we did mention it’s delightfully confusing). And therein entered Doris Levine (Modhulika Bose), a major in philosophy, who, not quite content with just watching the play, came up to answer Hepatitis’s questions on life , freedom and chaos. The exchange of philosophies continues until they realize they need to get back to the ending of the play (or the lack thereof). Eventually Trichinosis (Utkarsh Srivastava), another Greek who’d heard of their dilemma, brought with him an ending that was supposedly bound to amaze the audience. 

Armed with their finale, they present their play with Diabetes playing Phidipedes, a slave who needs to deliver a message to a king. The ending of course doesn't go quite the way it was planned. The crowd was in splits throughout and there was not one dull moment. With characters that ran across the stage 

With some brilliant performances by the actors, costumes that were a huge hit and Music that won the audience over, the play kept everyone enthralled till the very last minute. The cast and crew did an incredible job of putting it all together. None of this would have been possible if not for the Director Modhulika and her zeal and passion.

Akshaya Venkataraman....