About Disha
   Description   Mission   Who We Are  

Company Description

Founded in June 2000, Disha Theatre is a not-for-profit theatre company devoted to creating a South Asian community within the theatrical world. The following description gives a brief outline of Disha's mission and goals, history and reason for inception, plan of current programs, and potential future projects.

Mission

The overarching mission of Disha is to develop a unique theatrical voice by fostering and producing work by writers, actors, directors, and other artists of the South Asian Diaspora.

Disha acts as both an educational tool for the worldwide community about South Asian culture as well as a performance arena for established and budding South Asian writers, actors, directors, and performers. Some of Disha's specific goals are to:

  • Develop quality theater and film productions with innovative and cutting edge performances
  • Showcase the work and talent of South Asian theatrical artists
  • Offer artists a workshop environment to allow them to network and collaborate with peers
  • Educate the community-at-large about South Asian culture and issues/conflicts, thus erasing prevalent stereotypes
  • Provide the South Asian Community with a voice that represents their culture and concerns and which educates the new generation of South Asians

    Pote ntial Future Activities of Disha Theatre:

  • Producing and running a full-length play for several weeks in New York
  • Hosting a series of readings or film screenings based on South Asian themes
  • Conducting artist workshops, where film/theater artists come together for a day to create dramatic exercises and to network with each other for future collaborations
  • Commissioning artists to produce a film or play specifically for Disha Theater
  • Collaborating with other theater and film companies to complete productions
  • Working with training schools and universities to educate their students about South Asian theater and film
  • Creating established artist advisory groups which will be available to provide feedback for and help develop the work of artists who desire guidance
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    Who We Are
    (click name for complete bio)


    Board of Directors
    Purva Bedi
    Rizwan Manji
    Reena Dutt


     


    Purva Bedi is Artistic Director and Founder of Disha Theatre since its inception in June 2000.

    On stage, Purva appeared in East is East (Manhattan Theatre Club & The New Group), Kingdom of Lost Songs (Lincoln Center Directors Lab), Rice Boy (The Mark Taper Forum Taper Too), Merchant on Venice (Mark Taper Forum, East West Players, Cornerstone, and The Lark Theatre), Bad Women (The Talking Band) and numerous productions with Target Margin Theatre including These Very Serious Jokes, Sonoma, The 5 Hysterical Girls Theorem, and The Seagull.

    In films, Purva is best known for her starring role in the cult classic,
    American Desi, for which she received an Ammy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Feature Film. Purva also starred in the award winning film, Cosmopolitan, which was critically acclaimed at numerous film festivals and premiered on the PBS Independent Lens series. Purva's other films include the internationally released Green Card Fever, Universal Pictures' The Emperor's Club, Wings of Hope, and her forthcoming feature, Ball and Chain (aka The Arrangement). Purva has also starred in numerous short films, including This Moment, Eastern Son, Good Thing, Vasarma's Lovers, Hole and Bananas.

    Purva has worked extensively in television drama and comedy. Guest starring roles include Boston Legal, House, Alias, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Drew Carey Show, ER, Strong Medicine, Fastlane, and an award-winning episode of The West Wing.

    Purva is Executive Producer and Lead Actress on Shyam Madiraju's new feature film, Broken. Purva lives and works in both New York City and Los Angeles. Her education and training includes Williams College, The British American Drama Academy in London, and The Public Theatre Shakespeare Lab in New York.

    For more information, go to www.PurvaBedi.com.


    Rizwan Manji is Co-Founder of Disha Theatre.

    Rizwan has worked extensively in theater, film, and television. He is currently shooting Charlie Wilson's War directed by Mike Nichols.  Rizwan can be seen in the upcoming films Transformers: Prime Directive and Smokin' Aces and the upcoming sitcom Knights of Prosperity.  Rizwan was recently seen guest starring on the shows Rescue Me, NCIS, Sleeper Cell, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and as a Series Regular on the MTV show Damage Control. Rizwan is best known for having played Salim Ali Khan in the hit movie American Desi.

    Theatrically, Rizwan played Gilbert in the critically acclaimed production of The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem presented by the Obie Award winning Target Margin Theatre Company under the direction of David Herskovits, Warren in the world premiere of Kirk Wood Bromley's Want's Unwisht Work and Jimmy Broderick in the American Premiere of Julien Green's South.

    Rizwan has also dabbled in producing and directing, with projects such as Fillum Star: The Peter Patel Story, Hyde & Sikh (Runner up at the Asian American Film Festival) and Twin: The Sam and Chris Story.  He graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in 1995.


    Reena Dutt is an actress of film, tv, and theatre.     She trained in New York Citywith Terry Knickerbocker at the famed William Esper Studio. Upon completion of the program she went on to work with The National Asian American Theatre Company, HERE Arts Center, Miller Theatre, and New York Fringe Festival. In film she worked on FillumStar: The Peter Patel Story opposite Rizwan Manji, and she also worked with up and coming directors such as Ambika Samarthya, and Rehana Mirza.  Upon her arrival in Los Angeles she has worked on stage with the Pasadena Playhouse/Furious Theatre Company, Mark Taper Forum's Asian American Workshop, East West Players and in television/film, *Medium* (NBC, October 17 th), *Out of Practice*(CBS), *Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World *(dir. Albert Brooks, Jan 2006).

    In addition to performances, Reena has worked with Slamdance (alongside Sarita Choudhury and Tillotoma Shome) to workshop the screenplay finalist, PREETI GIRL by Todd Holmes, in LA and NYC. She has also workshopped new plays with MCC Theatre and Ars Nova in New York City.  Reena recently formed Red Dirt Productions with Arun Vir, where she produced and starred opposite Haskell V. Anderson in the short film, UNFINISHED, to be completed in 2007. 

    For more information, go to www.ReenaDutt.com.


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