Esplanade Presents | Kalaa Utsavam 2023 • Fistful of Rupees by Stone Paper Stories (India) [Advisory 16: Some mature content and coarse language]

Event Details

“The play is special for those who find themselves caught up in choosing a city to call it home— it lays bare the impossible challenges that Mumbai, Singapore and New York pose.”
– The Mumbai Times

Raghav moves to Mumbai without much of a plan, throwing himself headfirst into the ruckus. After living in quiet and orderly Singapore for many years, Mumbai comes as quite a shock.

Everything feels heightened, louder, brighter, impossible to ignore. He fights the absurd loneliness of the crowded city with lots of laughter, and some bravery.

Incisive and candid with dashes of absurdity, Fistful of Rupees considers the idea of what it means to truly arrive in this expansive and yet tiny world. Flitting between grim realism and outright absurdist humour, the play is both an ode to Mumbai's overpowering personality as well as a heartfelt journey of a young person navigating opportunity and despair with equal earnestness. At some point, Raghav must decide whether he wants to continue to spectate and observe, or finally jump in as well.

Fistful of Rupees was written by artist and theatre maker Shiv Tandan, inspired by his own real-life experiences. The play was featured at Tata LitLive! Mumbai Literature Festival 2018 and in the same year, named runner-up at the International Sultan Padamsee Playwriting Awards, one of the most sought-after awards for English language dramatists in India.

Shiv Tandan is an award-winning writer-director for film and theatre. Shiv's salient work includes Google Creative Lab Australia and Griffin Theatre Company’s trans-media experiment The Next Stage (writer) and Checkpoint Theatre's The Good, the Bad and the Sholay (writer and co-director). Sholay was selected as one of 50 significant works as part of the SG50 celebrations and published in Voices Clear and True: New Singapore Plays Vol 1. More recently, Shiv has written and directed And Now Live, an audio web series, and Say Cheese Grandpa!, a kids play produced by Saregama. Shiv is also Founder of Stone Paper Stories, and Associate Artist at Checkpoint Theatre, Singapore.

Instagram: 
@stone.paper.stories
@khayaalishiv
@imraginitandan
@rampalanujone
@vaibhav_kapatia
@niharikalyradutt
@amllika
@maanavipanwar
@shantanu_salvi