Hypokrit Theatre Company Receives Congressional Award for ROMEO AND JULIET

On January 22 at Hypokrit Theatre Company's Kick Off Party, Executive Producer and CEO of Park Place Group Roger Sengupta presented co­founders Arpita Mukherjee and Shubhra Prakash with a certificate of special recognition from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. The award recognized the opening of ROMEO AND JULIET. Here are some highlights of the production:

1) The first time Shakesperean verse is interspersed with Bollywood music and dance.

2) Two casts performing ROMEO AND JULIET in repertory

3) Eamonn Farrell, pioneer in projection design and Professor of Media Design at Princeton, creates groundbreaking projections to capture the Bollywood aesthetic in an intimate 50­ seat black box theatre.

4) Over 100 hand­made costume and jewelry pieces created by artisans in India

Director Arpita Mukherjee shares her vision behind the production:

"Our ROMEO AND JULIET is going to be visually stunning and so viscerally engaging that audiences won't really have time to think about whether they 'understand' Shakespeare or Bollywood."

"The world we are creating, you won't be able to keep yourself from being completely immersed in it, and just follow the emotional arc of the story. But it isn't fluff (because it's Bollywood). We're exploring some serious issues in the play: the treatment of women, meaningless violence in the urban landscape and the ways power and greed serve as motivators for 'progress' and what that means for a city's story. Of course, we're talking about this in the context of New Delhi, but the tropes have universal resonance."

On February 5, 2015 Hypokrit Theatre Company is holding a special press night for critics and journalists. Complimentary wine/beer and hors d'oeuvres will be served. Please contact a?rpita@hypokritnyc.org to reserve your seat today and watch Hypokrit Theatre Company transform Access Theater into the vibrant city of New Delhi as a Bollywood dreamscape!

Hypokrit Theatre Company is a? n?ew, multicultural, theatre company that adapts classics from around the world for the contemporary audience and aims to encourage diverse voices in the arts by exploring what makes a story resonate with universal audiences, through the ages and across borders.