ABOUT US

The Patchworks Ensemble is a theatre company that strives to create relevant and surprising theatre. Our work is process based, starting with explorations and workshops, from which emerges art that is organic and owned by all the artists and collaborators involved. This process helps create a united spirit and combined ownership of stories for an engaged audience.

 

The Patchworks Ensemble offers a unique theatre experience which lays importance on the actor’s body and comes alive in the audience’s imagination.

 

We aim to create an environment where artists feel safe to take risks with their work. In our on-going search for both artistic and intellectual collaboration, we are looking for people who share our love for playfulness, spontaneity and our celebration of life in all its simplicities and complexities.

 

Since 2015, we have been working intensely in deepening our pedagogical approaches. We offer workshops for actors preparing for roles in films and web series, corporate workshops that are engaging and participative and workshops for individuals seeking artistic training through acting approaches and techniques like Uta Hagen, Laban, Chekov, Lecoq and many more.


THE TEAM

Sheena Khalid

Sheena Khalid is a theatre director, storyteller, writer and actor based in Mumbai. She is a founding member of the theatre company, Patchworks Ensemble. She has trained in Physical Theatre at the London International School of Performing Arts. At LISPA she was a scholarship student for the Advanced Course. 

With Patchworks Ensemble she has directed – Ila, Gentlemen’s Club and Shikaar. 

 

Sheena is a story-teller with Kommune. At Kommune, she is part of the curatorial team of Spoken Fest (India’s largest storytelling, spoken word and poetry festival). She has also directed and hosted events for Kommune. Her original storytelling pieces are online on Kommune YouTube channel. 

Sheena was one of the co-writers of the true crime podcast – Dosa King. Produced by Spotify. 

Produced by Gaysi Family, Sheena has also directed the show Pinky Promise (December 2018) for their 10 year anniversary celebration. 

She was a performer and writer on the show Where I Stand curated by the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture and The Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh. The show premiered in 2018 at The G5A Foundation, Mumbai and then travelled to The Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. After the show, she was invited to conduct a Master Class with the students of the Master’s Script Writing course at the University of Glasgow. 

Sheena has worked as a corporate trainer and acting coach on numerous projects. 

She is one of the five Fellows for the ‘Tendulkar-Dubey Fellowship for Young Theatre Artists of Outstanding Talent’. In the summer of 2017, Sheena attended the ‘Lincoln Centre Directors Lab 2017’ in New York (fully funded thanks to the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts).

On a personal note, Sheena Khalid continues to deepen her exploration into performances and stories about and by women. She strives to create content that is relevant, engaging and humorous.


Puja Sarup

Puja Sarup is an actor, director, acting coach based in Mumbai. She is the co- founder of Patchworks Ensemble. After completing her MA in Theatre Arts from Mumbai University in 2005, she continues to train and gain experience to improve her skills. 

In 2005-2006, she did a brief stint with ‘Footsbarn’ and ‘Buchinger’s Boots’, travelling theatre companies based in France. In 2014 she completed a 3 year course in Florence, Italy at ‘Helikos- International school of Theatre creation’. The school is based on the Lecoq pedagogy and exposed her to mask work, chorus work and many other forms.

She was awarded the J.N. Tata Endowment scholarship for the same. She is also the recipient of the Vinod Doshi fellowship and the META – Mahindra Excellence in theatre award.

Theatre Work (Since 2003)
  • Noises Off ( Atul Kumar)
  • The Blue mug ( Atul Kumar)
  • Repertwahr Festival (Lucknow)
  • A house of correction (Rehaan Engineer)
  • All about my mother (Aakash Khurana)
  • Sex, morality and Censorship (Sunil Shanbag)
  • Grey elephant in Denmark (Chaitanya Tamhane)
  • Hamlet - The clown prince ( Rajat Kapoor )
  • Ramanaya (Felix Ott)
  • Sounding Vanya (Rehaan Engineer)

Screen Work
  • That Girl in Yellow Boots ( Anurag Kashyap)
  • Rangoon (Vishal Bhardwaj)
  • Mumbai Calling (ITV production)
  • Sui Dhaga (Sharat Kataria)
  • Decoupled (Hardik Mehta)
  • Six Strands (Chaitanya Tamhane)
  • She is the voice of the podcast ‘ Mafialand’ on Spotify.

She has also acted in, co-directed, and co-written all Patchworks Ensemble productions since 2014. 

Puja also enjoys teaching. She has been associated with ‘Drama School Mumbai’ in various roles since 2014.She has worked with children of different age groups with different organisations and schools like Prithvi Theatre, Rangashankara, Pomegranate, Erehwon Inc and others. 

Her constant effort is to find ways of interacting with people of different ages and experiences and helping them find their unique storytelling voice.