Nautanki Bazaar

After four amazing weeks we concluded our very first workshop yesterday and what an incredible time we had reading, learning and discussing two really great and important playwrights - Henrik Ibsen and Harold Pinter. Thank you Apoorva for sharing with us some great knowledge and insights about playwrighting and reading! We learned so much! And also to all the participants who attended our workshop! What a fun bunch we all made!

🎭 HOW TO READ A PLAY WORKSHOP 🎭

Ever wondered what makes a play truly grip an audience?

This 4-part workshop dives into simple, practical ways to read, discuss, and interpret plays - not academically, but as stories. We’ll explore what makes a play 'play' - the elements that keep audiences leaning forward instead of heading for the exit.

📖 Over 4 sessions, we’ll read:
• Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
• Betrayal by Harold Pinter

Each session includes:
✨ Reading the first half of the play
✨ Breaking down its storytelling craft

👤 Led by Apoorva Kale, a playwright whose work has been staged in New York, London, and Mumbai, with training from The New School for Drama and commissions from the Royal Court Theatre and Unga Riksteater.

🗓 Dates: May 9, 16, 23, 30, 2026
⏰ 4 sessions | 11am-1pm
📍 Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas Street East, Toronto

💸 FREE (with a refundable damage deposit)

📩 For more details, email us - [email protected]

Our first reading of 2026 is in the books! We read "Behsharam" by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. Thank you to everyone who braved the weather to attend. See you all next month.

Happy 2026! Nautanki Bazaar's "Play Reading Club" returns on Fri, Jan 16 where we'll be reading "Behsharam", a play in English by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti - Two daughters, two mothers, one father, a cardboard cut-out and a foul mouthed granny, a household at war and a family which will do anything to protect its secrets.

Behsharam is Bhatti's first play. It broke box office records at Soho Theatre and Birmingham Rep when it opened in 2001.

Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti (born 1968) was a core writer on The Archers from 2012 to 2019. She has also written for EastEnders and Hollyoaks. In 2025, her adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s Marriage Material will be produced at the Lyric Hammersmith and her play Choir will open at Chichester Festival Theatre.

Friday, Jan 16 at 7pm at the Daniels Spectrum, Toronto

RSVP Now to [email protected]

Another great evening where we read Ayad Akhtar's "Disgraced." Thank you to all who came. We're off in December and will return in January!

Nautanki Bazaar's "Play Reading Club" returns on Fri, Nov 14 where we'll be reading "Disgraced" by Ayad Akhtar - When Amir and his artist wife, Emily, host an intimate dinner party at their Upper East Side New York apartment, what starts put as a friendly conversation soon escalates into something far more damaging.

Disgraced (2012) is the first stage play by playwright, novelist, and screenwriter Ayad Akhtar. The play, won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and has also been recognized with a 2012 Joseph Jefferson Award for New Work – Play or Musical and a 2013 Obie Award for Playwriting. The 2014 Broadway transfer earned a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play in 2015.

Ayad Akhtar (born October 28, 1970) is an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He is the only South Asian to have won the Pultizer Prize in Drama.

Friday, Nov 14 at 7pm at the Daniels Spectrum

RSVP Now to [email protected]

We were back after the summer with a great reading of "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen, superbly adapted by Tanika Gupta. Thank you to all who came and we'll see you next month! 😀