About The Event
Dear Omana unfolds as letters exchanged between a struggling writer, Krishna Shastri Devulapalli, and a bestselling author, Omana Banerjee.
Simple do-it-yourself methods to generate ideas for a book, being the star attraction at a lit fest, decoding book blurbs, the secret behind trilogies, switching effortlessly from writing fiction to futuristic recipe books, understanding the connection between veg bondas and bestsellers—Omana seemingly has all the answers as she mentors Krishna through the various stages of being an Indian writer.
A savage satire, Dear Omana spares no one in the literary field—writers, publishers, poets, editors, lit agents, lit fest curators, translators, wastepaper merchants. A tale of passion, revenge and sales returns, Dear Omana is for anyone who ever wanted notes on how to be a LITERARY SENSATION.
The Playwright
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a novelist, columnist and screenwriter. Primarily a satirist/humour writer, he has written four books—Ice Boys in Bell Bottoms, Jump Cut, The Sentimental Spy, How to be a Literary Sensation—and edited an anthology, Madras on My Mind.
The Cast
Nikhila Kesavan and V. Sarvesh Sridhar
One of the leading young theatre actors in Chennai today, Sarvesh has acted in over forty plays with about 250 performances. He has played key/title roles in Amadeus, Five Point Someone, An Idiot for Dinner, Dangalnama, Twelve Angry Men, Sakharam Binder, Serious Men, Madaiah the Cobbler (which was featured at the 8th Theatre Olympics hosted by India in 2018), Laila and Jamal and This is my name, to name a few. He was chosen to attend a ten-day workshop on Shakespearean acting organized by the British Council, and conducted by the Globe Theatre.
The Director
Nikhila Kesavan has been working as an actor and director in English theatre for over two decades. As a director, she is known for her original stage adaptations of Jhumpa Lahiri’s A Temporary Matter, Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, Shandana Minhas’s Tunnel Vision and Manu Joseph’s Serious Men. She adapted seven stories of R. Chudamani into a play titled Chudamani. Most recently, she directed Laila and Jamal, her adaptation of Manu Joseph’s Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous. Two of her plays—Five Point Someone and Laila and Jamal—have been featured at The Hindu Theatre Fest.
