Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry has a Master’s degree in the History of Arts as well as a diploma from the National School of Drama.  In 1979, she moved to Bhopal and was attached to The Rang Mandal, a theatre repertory attached to the Multi-arts Complex, Bharat Bhavan. In 1984, she moved to Chandigarh where she set up her own theatre company called ‘The Company.’ Parallely, she has also been teaching in the Department of Indian Theatre, Panjab University and was also the Chairperson.  

Dr. Chowdhry’s well-known plays include Kitchen Katha, The Suit, Yerma,  Nagamandala,  The Madwoman of Chaillot, Little Eyolf, Bitter Fruit and Naked Voices, Gumm Hai, and Black Box,  to name a few . The group has participated in major national and international festivals.

Dr. Chowdhry is the recipient of several awards including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2003, and the  Padma Shri in 2011. She is presently Professor Emeritus at Panjab University.

Amruta is a freelance artist, teacher and performer, currently based in Mumbai. She graduated from Mumbai University with an MA in Theatre Arts, and has since trained and practiced within various performance disciplines from around the world. She is also a graduate of The DUENDE School of Ensemble Physical Theatre.  

​Born in Ratnagiri, a small town in the belt of Konkan Region of Maharashtra, India, Amruta began her theatre studies at home with her father, who was involved in folk and regional theatre. Since then, she has never doubted what she wants to do with her life.

​Amruta’s focus lies in exploring the integration of Body and Mind,  on creating body-mind awareness and mindfulness through interdisciplinary practices, including Tai-Chi, Kalari, Clowning, Dance. From such foundations, she finds the freedom to (create) work that respects the complexity of expressions in the body, and how to shape expression into performance.

As an interdisciplinary teacher/facilitator,  Amruta aims to create strong physical awareness and presence, not only with actors but also youngsters. Her work explores existing social/cultural paradigms and discourses concerning relationships between body and mind, seeking to bridge the gap between body and mind created by dominant structures in society.​ Her clown work, by spreading laughter, aims to improve mental health of underpreviliged kids, including children of sex workers or those in juvenile home and for women rescued from trafficking.

In 2019 Amruta was the first (and only one yet) to be awarded the Julie Goell Eccentric Woman Scholarship. She was recently awarded Maharashtra Cultural Center’s RANGSETU fellowship for her work in Clowning.

Amba is an alumnus of LAMDA (The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, London UK). She is a theatre maker, performer, teacher, workshop facilitator and director. 

She hopes to create theatre that challenges and investigates our times. ‘What is the world and what is our place within it?’, is the question she aims to continue to explore, with and through her work.

Amba continues her overseas collaborations in the UK and US. Her recent work during the pandemic in 2020 includes a virtual theatre experiment – What you will – a devised show in collaboration with The Shakespeare Ensemble, UK. And more recently in 2021, Interwebs, a project built in collaboration with Walkabout Theatre, Chicago with whom she has been working regularly in the US over the last 4 years.

For close to a decade now Amba has been conducting workshops for both adults and children and has also been a regular visiting faculty at DSM, Mumbai, where she taught Shakespeare in Performance.

Amba founded the Guild of the Goat in 2017 with RUDY to create work that is exciting, relevant, contemporary and makes us all question ourselves and the world we inhabit. The company chooses not to have a unifying artistic vision or trademark aesthetic. The guild of practitioners with diverse training, experiences and approaches, the company finds strength in its diversity and aspires to create work and build audiences which are also diverse.