THE MONEY OPERA
Immersive Theatre & Performance (2022-ongoing)“The Immersive Theatre Experience Of Amitesh Grover’s 'Money Opera” - OUTLOOK India
“Amitesh Grover creates a layered piece on capitalism.” - The Indian Express
“The play has a soul and stories of a new city.” - The Sunday Guardian
“A world within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside.” Open The Magazine
“Amitesh Grover introduces a new form of theatre.” - The Hindu
“Dreamlike set design and an unusual way of storytelling.” The Patriot
“Many stories in this immersive show come from a space of vulnerability.” Dajiworld
“It contains songs and stories of ambition, guilt, fear, desire, love.” - Serendipity Arts Festival
“A complex system set in motion by the mind of a genius.” - Medium
THE MONEY OPERA is an immersive theatre production created as a site-specific project. Housed in an abandoned building, it contains songs and stories of ambition, guilt, fear, desire, love, and community that reveal the nature of contemporary society. Audiences enter the building and spend time with characters — played by actors and real life professionals — in a dystopic universe. They meet a young billionaire, a ghost, an inheritor, a landlord, a child goddess, a thief, a poet, a stock-broker, a rebel, an explorer, and several others, who hammer at society’s facade and tell us about the extent to which they go to survive in, trump, or fight against the system.
Like the free-market economy, this is free-wheeling theatre, where the audience chooses what they watch, how they watch, but are in little control of what occurs inside the building. The fiction of money binds the universe of this show, weaving complex narratives concerning the precarious position of people at the margin, and a few at the centre, revealing what they keep hidden, oppressed, and buried in money.
CAST & CREW
Writer Sarah Mariam | Scenographer Asim Waqif | Chief Assistant Director Sarthak Narula | Set Designers Garima Aggarwal Roy & Anindya Roy | Assistant Director Vishnupad Barve | Show Producer & Project Manager Tanvi Shah | Costume Designer Gurpreet Sidhu | Light Designer Vikrant Thakar | Sound Designer Akash Sharma | Ensemble Music Composer Riddhiman Dutta | Production Design Assistant Asavari Gurav | Production Assistant Shravan Naik | Light Operator Omkar Hazare | Sound Engineer Amir Noronha | Sound Technician Ravi Jadhav | Show Photographer Radhika Agarwal | Graphic Designer Chandan Crasta | Film Vaibhav Raj Shah
Performers Akanksha Devaprakash, Anish Albuquerque, Jitu Rabha, Mamata D. Verlekar, Manoj Thapar, Padmashree Josalkar, Pradip Sarmokadam, Raghunath Chari, Riddhiman Dutta, Shivpranav D. Alavani, Silpi Dutta, Snehalata Tagde, Sumali Khaniwale, Suvrat Joshi, and Vishnupad Barve.
Created & Directed by Amitesh Grover
Original content by Shivpranav Damodar Alavani, Dr. Aninda Mazumdar (Oceanographer), Anish Albuquerque (Financial Advisor), Mamata Deepak Verlekar (Poet), and Dr. Pradip Sarmokadam (Ecologist). Music and Songs by respective performers.
Language: Hindi, English, Marathi, Konkoni, Kannada, Bhojpuri
Duration: 3 hrs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Mayor of City of Panaji Mr. Rohit Monserrate, S.S. Dempo College of Commerce and Economics (Goa), Ayesha Punwani, Ojas Raturi, Sanjana Chaturvedi, Amir Noronha, Archana Lalit Khobragde, Sourabh Guru, Moumita Pal, Preeti Agarwal Mehta, Somak Chaudhary, Rakhi Basu, Dr. B. Jayashree, Pitambari Josalkar, Vinod Gurjar, Aarohan Phatela, Umesh Oraon, Sanjay Yadav, and Owner of the Unnamed Building, Altinho, Panaji, Goa.
Immense gratitude for the carpenters, masons, cleaners, workmen, and volunteers, who worked at the site for three months.
A huge thank you to the excellent team at Serendipity Arts Foundation — Prerna, Deeksha, Minaal, Jai Hind, Sukarn — and the fabulous Smriti Rajgarhia (Director, SAF) for supporting this show.
Amitesh Grover's The Money Opera was commissioned by Serendipity Arts Foundation for Serendipity Arts Festival 2022.“Amitesh Grover creates a layered piece on capitalism.” - The Indian Express
