Golam Ashraf: The Director - From Script to Stage Golam Ashraf's relationship with drama is nearly as long standing as the length of his life. Born and educated in the theatrically vibrant city of Calcutta, his love for the art form has been shaped through his involvement in numerous English and Bengali plays since the age of three, both at amateur and professional level. He has been influenced by great stage directors like Phyllis Bose and playwrights like Abhijit Sircar & Badal Sircar.... willing to find drama in the seemingly insignificant. Despite pursuing his Bachelors & Ph.D. degrees in computer engineering in Singapore, his love for theater did not fizzle out. After having acted in a few local productions, he finally started off an original initiative to provide the public with quality drama performed by talented amateurs from NTU and NUS.
These amateurs come together once a year, to rehearse and perform with passion and professionalism, their sole aim being to entertain the Singaporean public, and to prove to themselves that true love for the arts springs from within. Rehearsal settings are minimal, sponsorships frugal and extra-curricular points non-existent... and yet the drama contrasts like a plush Turkish carpet in the middle of the Sahara. With his rag-band group Precocious Puppets, under the wings of the Society of Indian Scholars, Ashraf has acted, directed and produced 3 years of absorbing and well appreciated drama for the public since 1999. He has directed Chin Woon Ping's "Diary of a Madwoman", and Abhijit Sircar's award winning trilogy: "Bull-Run", "Author Author" and "Child's Play". This year, he is directing Mohit Sindhwani's world premiere of "The Mirror Has Two Hands".
Ashraf's directing style is drawn mainly from his acting experiences. He has played various lead roles like hysterical groom-to-be in Anton Chekov's "The Proposal", eccentric professor in Eugene Eunesco's "The Lesson", devil in Abhijit Sircar's "Bull Run" and dying artist in Marcel Nunis's "Meet Joe Jack". However his most treasured experiences lie in a 2 line role of a crippled boy in "Smike", a musical adaptation of "Nicholas Nickelby" by Charles Dickens. Under the magical direction of Phyllis Bose, he understood how even such a minor role could be punctuated with so much texture and importance, and that is why Ashraf does not use "human props" in his plays. He has also had a close encounter with acclaimed Badal Sircar's street theater, having performed in "The Otherside of Hatta Mala", with the great icon of Indian theater himself in the audience. Ashraf's experience in puppetry, clay modeling and computer animation also lends shades to his performances. He hopes to bring to the public this year a gem of a play in its most colorful and unadulterated form, making for yet another bright spot in the history of Nautanki.
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