Vijaykumar Vishwanath Naik
Born in the family of theatre artists
on 5th Nov 1964, Vijaykumar Naik made his first appearance on stage as an actor at the age of 6. From the childhood
itself he was involved in the rehearsal process of the plays produced by Hauns Sangeet Natya Mandal and then from the age
of 10 he was an important member of the Hauns team by helping the senior artists of the group in wardrobe, make-up and stage
properties along with acting on stage. This experience helped him to build himself as an organizer, which limited his journey
as an actor. His excellence in acting was experienced when he acted out Sambhaji in Rayagadala
Jevha Jaag Yete, a pioneer play in Marathi by Vasant Kanetkar.
He started his venture as a director at the age of 13 by directing a one-act play Shalya Raahile Uri in Marathi. This ongoing journey till date includes plays like
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Court Martial by Swadesh Deepak, Ahalyotdhar
a musical play by Krishnambhatt Bandkar, Teesri Nazar Se,
Thankyou Aajoba
written by himself etc. The creative director in him excelled when he directed solo performances like Aavart and Rome Jalatana,
Aayudh a play of body language and Amurt a play without any actor on stage.
The assassination of Safdar Hashmi, the well known street play artist of India provoked him to write an one act play
named Murder of an Artist which started his journey
as a writer. As a writer he has 11 full-length plays, 24 one act plays, 4 radio plays, 6 solo plays and 7 children plays to
his credit. 3 compilations of one-act plays are published in the form of books entitled Mann, Shatkon and Trikon.
With the establishment of Hauns
Theatre Training Centre, he took over as it’s chief coordinator with an objective of working for children and youth
theatre to encourage the young talent in theatre, to shape their theatrical potential, to advocate the necessity of theatre
for personality development, to propose education friendly theatre and to work in theater as artistic and social expression.
As an individual he has coordinated more than 200 theatre workshops for children, workshops for youth, residential camps,
yearlong theatre workshops, workshops for teachers and also for special children.
Through Hauns Theatre he initiated
some specific activities like Rangayatra- a students theatre
convention, Anandshala, the regular classes for children
and youth, Rangashala –theatre workshops for schools,
Creative Theatre for Children and Youth for the play performances at schools and colleges etc, MEFTT-Make Education Friendly Through Theatre and Sasneha an artistic exchange with the drama groups.
He has passion for designing stage lights and also worked as set designer, music designer,
costume designer, make-up artist and stage manager.
Of recently his work as drama consultant has picked up
momentum….
