Islamabad 17 August 2009
Eminent playwright and PTV’s Deputy Managing Director Shahid Nadeem has been awarded President’s Award for Pride of Performance for Literature (Playwright). Nadeem is Pakistan’s leading playwright who has contributed over 30 original plays in Urdu and Punjabi. His plays have been widely performed in Pakistan, India and other countries. His collections have been published in Pakistan and India and his plays have been included in MA Punjabi syllabus in India. Oxford University Press recently published a collection of English translations of his plays. While reviewing this collection, the Time Time Magazine said “ Nadeem’s theatre is passionately fired faith in Pakistan’s potential for change and in sanctity of life”. His plays have been trendsetters because of their innovative form and bold themes. He is also well-known as TV playwright and director. His telefilm “An Act of Terror” was nominated for British Film & Television Academy (BAFTA) awards this year.

Shahid Nadeem is Executive Director of Pakistan’s leading theatre group Ajoka and his latest play on “Dara Shikoh” will be presented by Ajoka soon..

MUSAFAT THEATRE FESTIVAL - 17MAY TO 24MAY (ALHAMRA the mall,Lahore,Pakistan)

MUSAFAT THEATRE FESTIVAL - 30MAY TO 4JUNE (KARACHI ARTS COUNCIL,KARACHI,Pakistan)

Burqavaganza in Lahore/ Islamabad

Ajoka Triumphant Karachi Tour

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHES SHAHID NADEEM’S SELECTED PLAYS

Oxford University Press Pakistan has published Shahid Nadeem’s selected plays in a collection which is a landmark in Pakistani Theatre. This is the frist-ever collection of a Pakistani playwright’s plays translated into English , produced by a leading international publishing house. OUP introduced the book in following words: “This selection of seven of Shahid Nadeem’s Plays published for the first time in English translations, fully displays the author’s dazzling range and ability. Each play is memorably distinct in both subject and treatment, but underlying the variety is a passionate concern with major social issues, especially oppression of women and the poor, and the distorting restrictions of corruption and hypocrisy. Although such subjects could hardly be more serious, Shahid Nadeem always keeps the audience’s interest and enjoyment. Hypocrites, he shows, can be undermined by laughter. Hence the storms of controversy which his plays have roused, whether Dukhini on the trafficking of women from Bangladesh to Pakistan, Bulha on orthodox rejection of the great seventeenth-century Sufi mystic poet Bulleh Shah, or most recently, the banned Burqavaganza.”

“COLD PLAYS” A playwright captures his country’s pain

PLAYWRIGHT SHAHID NADEEM was a three-time political prisoner in Pakistan, and it shows. All seven works in his newly translated Selected Plays share extreme sensibilities, depicting a universe of overcrowded jail cells, slums and parched villages in which the blackest of deeds are committed. The most ambitious work, a historical drama chronicling the life of the 18th century Sufi poet Bulleh Shah (Spelled “Bulha” in the play) grapples, in the words of one character, with the “dark side of the human self” – exile, fatwas, persecution, genocide. There’s murder in The Third Knock, forced abortion in Acquittal, sex trafficking in Woman of Sorrow and extortion in Black Is My Robe. Even the most upbeat play, A Granny for All Seasons, about individual freedoms, is clouded by the dark legacy of partition. But strangely enough, the cumulative effect of reading these works is uplifting. Despite appearances, Nadeem is no pessimist. In fact, Selected Plays can be moralistic, even histrionic, with endless interludes of Punjabi folk songs and qawwali choruses. They are not horrors but shock dramas (one, Burqavaganza, was banned last year by Pakistan’s Minister of Culture).. Ultimately, Nadeem’s theatre is passionately fired by faith in Pakistan’s potential for change and in the sanctity of life. If only those who ram explosives into hotels and busy markets would feel the same way. (Time Magazine 3rd Nov,2008)

Chaak Chakkar Premiered

Ajoka premiered a new production of “Chaak Chakkar”, an Urdu adaptation of BRECHT`s Caucasian Chalk Circle. The play was performed on 8th ~10th October at Alhamra, Lahore. The cast included Hania Cheema, Nirvaan Nadeem and Usman Zia while Ajoka chairperson Uzra Butt gave a special appearance.

PICS OF BOOK LAUNCH "SELECTED PLAYS" BY SHAHID NADEEM

Ajoka is a voluntary organisation based in Pakistan, working in the field of theatre and electronic media, providing high quality entertainment with a social purpose.