'Stray Factory' in Delhi with award-winning plays

Chennai-based theatre group, which calls itself the "Stray Factory", is taking its award- winning short plays across the country through The Park's New Festival.
The festival, in its seventh edition now, focuses on new and emerging works of Indian artists who have carved a niche for themselves internationally.
"We are bringing five short plays to Delhi. These plays have contemporary ideas from cinema or politics or local content as their themes. We have staged them earlier in events and festivals in several places abroad," Mathivanan Rajendran, founder, Stray Factory says.
Rajendran, has written and directed "My Name is Cine-maa", a short play about a young cinephile called Cine-Ma who skips school and lands up in Mumbai with her knowledge on flamboyant South Indian film industry. Traditional art forms such as Silambattam and Mridangam are presented in a contemporary setting in the production.

The play picked up awards in Chennai, Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur and a full length version of it opened for a Singapore- based company in Singapore this August.
The seven-member troupe, which burst onto the contemporary theatre scene three years ago has its focus on local content.

"Everywhere we stage the plays we make sure to add some small referencing to the local. Our concepts are all original and we love influences and collaborations," says Rajendran, who is an industrial engineer and had also made his film debut in the Tamil film "Mayakkam Enna" starring actor Dhanush.
At the Park's New Festial, the Stray Factory's presentation is a group of five plays, "Osama, Cinema and a Whole lot of Black Money", which features one production created especially for Delhi.

"One thing we have realised is that you cannot be lazy about what you do in Delhi. The audience is very receptive here. They have already been exposed to such high standards and they appreciate a lot of different things," Nikhil Sriram, who handles production at the Stray Factory.
The troupe, all under the age of 30 years, had previously performed here in July this year at the Kamani auditorium.
Pooja Balu, the only woman in the group, who essays the lead in "My name is Cine-maa" says the international experiences have been exciting.
"We submitted our plays to the Short and Sweet Festival and won in Mumbai, we took it to Kaula Lumpur and won there too and then we went to Sydney too" says Pooja, who is started her career as a Tamil film actress.

After Delhi, the group heads off to Kolkata where the Park's New Festival is scheduled to kick off on September 17.
Meanwhile, curated by Prakriti Foundation, the three-day Festival (September 13- 15) in Delhi will see a performance by NH7, a contemporary dance trio as well as "A moment of mishearing" a concert by author Amit Chaudhari.