In Theatre

Seagull's beginnings were as an impresario and production unit for theatre and performance. It played a leading role in developing and presenting English language theatre in Calcutta, with the aim of building a growing audience of younger theatre goers. Long before the official government body, ICCR, made it statutory for foreign groups to seek collaboration with them, Seagull joined hands with the British Council, USIS, Max Mueller Bhavan and the Alliance Francaise to locate, invite, tour and present theatre, music, dance, fine art events, including handling the production and publicity.

Innovative shows and unusual events:

Concert by Xenakis at Birla Planetarium

Stockhausen under the stars in the Eastern Quadrangle of the Victoria Memorial

Rock Concerts

Theatre by the Hearing Impaired

Shikarh In 1982 Seagull organized Shikarh (lit.'roots'), the first ever grassroots theatre festival, a weeklong programme of plays drawn mainly from the industrial suburbs around Calcutta. This ground-breaking festival served to demonstrate to an urban audience and intelligentsia the existence of an alternative theatre of social concern that made use of the simplest theatrical means, a powerful body language and almost unlimited flexibility and mobility; and to the activists and practitioners themselves it brought a greater awareness of the variety and potential in their parallel explorations. They were motivated by their experience at the festival to seek further creative interaction between themselves and with other theatre traditions, in order to further their own creative journeys. It grew into a year long programme involving Badal Sircar,Kanhailal, Prabir Guha, the masters of Purulia Chhau, John Martin.

New Indian Playwright Series
First sustained publication programme to systematically disseminate post-independence playwriting in this country.