Kailash Pandya

Kailash Pandya (1923 – 24 December 2007), a distinguished theatre artist, winner of numerous national awards, was born in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India. He was actively associated with the Indian People’s Theatre Association, Mumbai from 1943 to 1948. From 1949 to 1957, he worked with Jaishankar Bhojak aka Jaishankar Sundari at Nat Mandal, Ahmedabad, and in 1958 attended the Asian Theatre Institute in Delhi (which later grew into the National School of Drama). He also learnt Kathakali from Guru Vazhenkada Kunchu Nair and Bhavai from Guru Chimanlal Nayak.

Head of the Theatre Department of Mrinalini Sarabhai’s Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Ahmedabad since 1959 till his death in 2007, Kailash Pandya had produced a variety of Indian and Western plays by Bhasa, Nikolai Gogol, Bertolt Brecht, Rabindranath Tagore and Vijay Tendulkar. He has been especially interested in folk theatre and has experimented with Bhavai in some of his productions. An actor par excellence, Mr Pandya also worked with veterans Dina Pathak and Chandravadan Mehta. Recipient of Gujarat Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for direction in 1983 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1993, Mr Pandya had participated in a number of theatre seminars and workshops in India and abroad and the prominent ones were at University of California, Los Angeles, California State University, Los Angeles High School for the Performing Arts, Redlands University and Pomona College, Claremont. Pomona College invited him to direct a Sanskrit Production of Mṛcchakatika in classical Natyashastra in 1994.