A. Mangai

A. Mangai is the pseudonym of Dr. V. Padma. She retired as Associate Professor in English from Stella Maris College, Chennai. She has been actively engaged in Tamil theatre as an actor, Director and Playwright for almost three decades. She hopes that her academic, activist and artistic selves can find a vibrant intersection. Her fields of interest are theatre, gender and translation studies. Her passion is to concentrate on community theatre – to make theatre the voice of the voiceless, or the marginalized.  She has directed over thirty -five plays so far. All of them deal with women –centered themes and characters. Her book Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India 1979 Onwards has been published by Left Word, New Delhi.