Dhritiman Chatterjee and Sabyasachi Chakraborty at the recording. Picture by Aranya Sen

One could sense a subdued excitement among the cast and the crew of 15, Park Avenue when Dhritiman Chatterjee (Sundar to friends) returned to the sets of an Aparna Sen film after 25 years, this time with salt-and-pepper hair. And before 15, Park Avenue hits the halls, Calcutta will get to catch the lanky youth from Satyajit Ray?s Pratidwandi on stage next month.

Chatterjee, who is involved with English theatre in Chennai, the city he now calls home, has been invited to take part in the Hutch theatre festival in June-end. ?The play is a tribute to Marathi poet Arun Kolatkar. We had three to four stagings in Chennai and also at Auroville in Pondicherry,? says Chatterjee, while recording for an album on Rabindranath Tagore?s works in a north Calcutta studio.

The production, which all began as a ?homage to Arun? just after he died in September last year, is based on interviews conducted by a journalist friend of Chatterjee.

In the production, Chatterjee plays the poet, with a gamut of dialogues, music and poetry-reading woven in. The performance has been put in place by a bunch of like-minded people in Chennai, mainly from the English theatre background.

Back in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chatterjee has worked in a few productions by The Madras Players, one of the oldest theatre groups earlier led by Girish Karnad. The Chennai theatre circuit, according to Chatterjee, is abuzz with renewed life ever since it started exploring Indian writing in English.

In between the live act, Chatterjee will take some time off for an English feature film. To be directed by Chennai-based ad and corporate film-maker Chetan Shah, the film is set on a campus blending elements of ?murder, mystery and even comedy?.

?I play an eccentric detective. It?s actually a comment on higher education and academics,? says Chatterjee, before adding, ?Chetan has got a terrific script and I am really looking forward to it, unlike most of the stuff I do which is more serious.?

Imogen Butler-Cole reads poetry as dancer Madhuboni Chatterjee looks on. Picture by Pabitra Das

A migratory bird

When Imogen Butler-Cole left London two years ago, little did she think a city by the Arabian Sea would be home to her some day. Theatre productions and working with NGOs have kept the ivory-skinned 20-something in Mumbai for the past one year, though she has plans to try living in other cities as well.

Early last week, the RADA-trained (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) actress breathed life into the role of a French mistress in Jean Genet?s The Maids, produced by the Industrial Theatre Company from Mumbai, in a house on Moira Street.

A few days later, she regaled a roomful at the British Council with an impassioned poetry reading session.

?I left the UK on a four-month trip to research theatre forms across the world. After travelling to Brazil, New Zealand, Thailand and parts of Africa, I came to Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta. I had initially decided to stay in Mumbai for some weeks but that got extended to a year,? smiles Imogen, who now finds herself drawn towards direction from acting.

In Mumbai this year, one of her major stage acts has been playing Ursula, in the eponymous Howard Baker piece, also with the Industrial Theatre Company.

?After Ursula, I am now working on another play with Pushan (Kripalani, of the same company). But this is an experimental one,? says she.

With a penchant for languages, Imogen doesn?t like to be confined to one place. Which was also one of the reasons why she chose to globetrot. ?I wanted to know about different forms of different places,? she says.

?And the only thing lacking at RADA is, I feel, international theatre. It?s mostly traditional British and classical texts. I wish they dealt with other forms of theatre as well. But the experience there was incredibly exciting. It was just theatre, day in day out,? she adds.

In Calcutta, Imogen has been involved with Diksha, an NGO for underprivileged children of Kalighat, helping to put up a performance last year. Now, she wants to help the children expand it to three or four pieces.

The other aspect Imogen is very keen on is teaching Shakespeare to school students. ?I would like to show them how to access a Shakespeare text as an actor would. I found the texts so boring in classrooms but saw how amazing they were when I approached them as an actor.?

Imogen can be contacted at cutlerybowl@yahoo.com.