Plays In An Okhla Factory? There's A New Theatrical Space In Town & It’s Changing The Rules

Black Box Okhla is a crude factory turned performance art space where people can watch theatrical productions. With no fixed boundaries or layout, it aims at hosting plays that are as much a product of a creative thought process as of their surroundings {read architecture}. For starters, you might be sitting in one zone on a particular day and a completely different spot the next time. 

Not buried under thick curtains or carpets, Black Box is that kid who’s always asking questions. Why should plays be restricted to an old school stage format? Or why should the audience not be involved with a production more intimately? Or just, why can’t plays run for a longer duration? 

In the process of finding a way around all these, Director, Nikhil Mehta decided to set this up as an alternative space that’d flout everything we traditionally expect as theatre going audience. So there’s zero effort put in in trying to suppress the factory’s unpleasant past – Black Box Okhla celebrates the rustic nature of its bare walls and puts the spotlight where it truly belongs – the play itself. We’re told the lighting is spectacular and the scenic design has been conceptualised with the talented folks behind Broadway. 

All this leads us to think that a mini revolution is in order. And, we’re waiting to be a small part of it as we sit watching a story unfold.

Founder and Artistic Director, Nikhil Mehta has been closely associated with theatre for years. He has a stellar track record of being an assistant director for Sunday in the park with George starring Jake Gyllenhaal and closer home assisting Vishal Bharadwaj on building workshops for Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding Musical and Rangoon.

So we’re really talking a lot of heart and technical knowledge that can come only from someone who’s been hands-on.

This mysterious space is out there to surprise the performer as much as the unsuspecting theatre goer and if this doesn’t make you want to sit up and take notice, we’re going to mope.

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