happenings

Mrs. Mahabanoo Kotwal

(Producer, Director, Actor, Writer and Designer)

Tardeo, Mumbai

Vagina monologues

The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler which developed and premiered at  Arts Center, Off-Broadway in New York and was followed by an Off-Broadway run in 1996 at Westside Theatre. The play explores consensual and nonconsensual sexual experiences, body image, genital mutilation, direct and indirect encounters with reproduction, vaginal care, menstrual periods, sex work, and several other topics through the eyes of women with various ages, races, sexualities, and other differences. Mrs.Mahabanoo Kotwal who is nationally and internationally acclaimed producer, director, and stage and screen actor presented the play along with other artists to the beneficiaries of Hamaara Sapna free of cost. Mrs.Kotwal became one of India's first stand-up artists and first female stand-up artist in the mid-1990s and has since then performed  in Bombay, Pune, Delhi, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Madras, London, Sri Lanka and Singapore. As a director and producer, Mahabanoo has given India some of its most memorable plays in the past 10 years and one of them is The Vagina Monologues.The artists were Ms. Dolly Thakur, -Dolly Thakore is a veteran Indian theatre actress and casting director , Ms.Swati Das, -Swati Das is a theatre and film actor and Mrs.Mahabanoo Kotwal herself. The Vagina Monologues is a revolutionary play which continues to empower women around the world by normalising their body, by giving them agency, by speaking out about insecurities and injustices which they might not dare voice in real life. Having performed over 1000 shows in last 17 years, actor and director Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal has played an important role in making the play accessible to Indian audiences.Though a very bold play, was a whole new learning to the women of Hamaara Sapna.