THIRD BELL

Project Lead, Third Bell | Co-curator, Hear, Here Kolkata

Third Bell is an initiative by Bhasha Centre and The Drama Library.

Bhasha Centre, founded by theatre practitioner Vivek Madan, is an organisation dedicated to supporting theatre, literature and the performing arts through research, documentation, new writing and artistic exchange. Through its initiatives, it creates platforms for writers and theatre practitioners to develop work, share knowledge and engage with diverse theatrical practices.

My work with Bhasha Centre has allowed me to engage with theatre beyond the rehearsal room and the stage, particularly with the ecosystems that support playwriting, playwrights and new work.

Project Lead: Third Bell
Third Bell is dedicated to encouraging and supporting original Bangla playwriting. Conceived as a three-year programme running from 2025 to 2028, it aims to commission at least six new full-length Bangla plays while creating opportunities for emerging playwrights to develop their craft.

As Project Lead, I curate the commissioning and mentoring of original Bangla plays, an opportunity that remains relatively rare. I see playwriting as a way of documenting the times we live in, and value the process of working closely with writers as their ideas take shape. Beyond commissioning scripts, I hope to build a community of emerging Bangla playwrights and create a space where they can exchange ideas, discuss their writing practices, question their approaches and discover tools to develop their work. The intention is to build a sustained culture of engagement with playwriting through workshops, mentorship, readings, feedback and conversations.
The second season of Third Bell brought together seven shortlisted playwrights for an intensive three-day playwriting workshop facilitated by playwright and dramaturg Irawati Karnik. The process involved pitching, questioning, structural exploration and constructive feedback, allowing the playwrights to revisit and develop their ideas. Alongside the commissioned plays, an important outcome of this process has been the beginning of a community where playwrights can engage critically and generously with one another's work.

The initiative is also personal to me. As a probashi Bangali who grew up outside Bengal, my relationship with Bangla has been one of discovery. I never formally studied the language and taught myself to read and write by going through the Anandabazar Patrika, letter by letter. Being able to contribute to a space that encourages original writing in Bangla and supports playwrights in finding their voices has been especially meaningful.

Co-curator: Hear, Here Kolkata
Alongside Third Bell, I co-curated Hear, Here Kolkata with Ninad Samaddar. An initiative of Bhasha Centre, Hear, Here creates spaces for people to come together and experience plays through public readings followed by conversations.
The idea was to bring this format to Kolkata and create opportunities for playwrights, theatre practitioners, scholars and audiences to gather around a script. The opening edition brought together works from different periods of Indian theatre: Mahasweta Devi's Draupadi, Utpal Dutt's Barricade, Usha Ganguly's Rudali and Rabindranath Tagore's Muktadhara. Alongside these, we presented the three new Third Bell commissions by Gaurav Das, Rituparna Biswas and Somudranil Sarkar.

For me, the exercise was as much about revisiting existing texts as it was about creating new conversations around them. What happens when a play is heard rather than read silently? What new meanings emerge when people from different backgrounds encounter the same text in a shared space? How can readings become more than a preliminary step towards production, becoming an experience in themselves?

Explore the Work

Third Bell
An initiative supporting the commissioning and development of original Bangla plays.
https://www.bhashacentre.com/third-bell

The Drama Library
A digital library of unpublished plays, bringing together scripts across languages and making them accessible to readers and theatre practitioners.
https://www.bhashacentre.com/drama-library

Hear, Here Kolkata
Public readings and conversations bringing together playwrights, theatre practitioners, scholars and audiences around shared texts.
https://www.bhashacentre.com/hear-here

Back to the Page
A reflection by Meghna Roy Choudhury on her experience leading the Third Bell weekend in Kolkata, working with seven shortlisted playwrights and creating a space for exchange, feedback and conversations around new writing.
Read the essay: https://www.bhashacentre.com/post/back-to-the-page