Grandson of two theatre stalwarts Vishwanath Naik and Surya Wagh, playwright Kaustubh Naik is the first Goan to bag the prestigious Tendulkar-Dubey Fellowship
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With theatrics in his DNA, playwright Kaustubh Naik has become the first Goan to bag the prestigious scholarship offered to experimental theatre personalities across India. Named after two stalwarts of modern Indian theatre – Vijay Tendulkar and Pandit Satyadev Dubey, the Tendulkar Dubey Fellowship includes a certificate and a sum of Rs 1 lakh.
The fellowship has been awarded by Pune’s Sahitya Rangabhoomi Pratisthan to 67 recipients over last fifteen years as a support to theatre artists to stay active on the stage.
Carrying forward the legacy of both his grandfathers, Vishwanath Naik and Surya Wagh, Kaustubh received the scholarship at the hands of veteran actress and director Arundhati Nag, recently at a function in Pune.
Kaustubh who currently heads ‘Hauns Sangeet Natya Mandal’ - a theatre company founded by his grandfather Vishwanath Naik in 1950 expresses his joy, “I feel extremely happy and overwhelmed to have received this fellowship. Not only because it recognises my work and encourages me to push it to the next level, but also because it has put me in the national spotlight.”
He adds, “Also, previous recipients of this fellowship such as Umesh Kulkarni, Mohit Takalkar, Rajkumar Tangde, Aalok Rajwade, Irawati Karnik, Kalyani Mulay, etc have been people whose work I’ve absolutely admired and it is a special feeling to see my name appear next to theirs.”
“But this accolade is not just mine but that of everyone at Hauns who have trusted and supported my work and the new direction in which we are pushing our theatre company as it nears 70 years of continuous service to Marathi theatre,” said Kaustubh, a research scholar and a playwright based between Goa and New Delhi.
Having an MA in performance studies from Ambedkar University, Delhi, Kaustubh has recently finished his MPhil in Theatre and Performance Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.
He has been part of productions performed at various prestigious theatre festivals including the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in China, International Theatre Festival of Kerala, Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa, and META and Bharat Rang Mahotsav in New Delhi.
“In my research work, I have worked on the mapping of theatre practices in Goa in the context of its political significance,” shares Kaustubh whose maiden play ‘Avyahat’ opened in 2018 and has won several awards at state theatre competitions in Goa and Maharashtra, including the award for Best Adaptation.
