tafreehwale is a theatre company based in Mumbai, dedicated to making and supporting original, political, and playful theatre-making, and theatre training.
our guiding principles
the plays we make, and the training we do must be:
original
playful
political
joy, lightness, masti, respite are key to the content we make, and our day-to-day process of working
challenging systems of powers, asking questions of ourselves/the audience, making a mess - compulsory.
creating new, contemporary work that speaks to the current moment we are in.
2019
Plan B/C/D/E premieres as a "one night-only" show. so much for that.
after many years of debating names, tafreehwale is born. pandemic takes us online!
2021
2022
our first training programmes launch! Plan B/C/D/E gets re-written, and tours to Bangalore
2023
BIG YEAR
Mallika Shah joins as co-founder, we premiere I Killed my Mother/It Wasn't my Fault, register as an LLP, do 20+ shows, tour in 6 cities, launch our website PHEW
2020
international premiere of Plan B/C/D/E goes on in spite of the pandemic. kya baat hai!
2024
<20 shows, NCPA Connections, 4 cities, lots of false starts, training students at Drama School Mumbai, launching our teacher training programme, a work-in-progress of Art of Crying emerges, battles with bureaucracy kill braincells
Fever Dream and Jungle Nama premiere! First Prithvi run, I Killed my Mother/It Wasn't my Fault goes on hiatus, Mallika moves on to do only cooler and cooler things, and one tries to grapple with what it it means to scale/grow
2025
2026
hum dekhenge, I guess
our journey
Meghana AT is a theatre artist/theatre addict, who has been working in the Mumbai theatre circuit since 2012. In this time, she's worked as an actor, writer, director, production manager, trainer, producer - with more to come.
She completed her Master's in Authorial Acting and Pedagogy from The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 2021. As the founder of tafreehwale she hopes to build a safe space to create and support innovative and original theatre.
She is a visiting faculty member at the Drama School Mumbai. The shows she currently works on include Plan B/C/D/E, I Killed my Mother / It Wasn't my Fault, O Gaanewali, Unshared Childhoods, Glitch in the Myth, The Apology, Pink is the New Black.
Read more about her work here.
MEGHANA AT
our people
tafreehwale is built on collaboration, and everyone who ever steps in to help us/work with us/support us, is forever a tafreehwali
founder/artistic director/dreamer/chief fool
this is not an exhaustive list because that would take too long. thank you for your understanding
collaborators
Mallika is a theatre practitioner based in Mumbai, trained at the Drama School Mumbai. She has written and directed I Killed my Mother / It Wasn’t my Fault and Jungle Nama.
From 2023-2025 she worked as co-founder of tafreehwale, and left an indelible mark in our work output, working style, and overall joy
Mallika Shah
writer-director-producer-actor
Kaushikee Gupta, Anushka Ghose, Tanvi Shah, Shradha Raj, Lekha Paridha
Sunayana Premchander, Manish Khushalani, Malvika Dwivedi, Adi Shastri, Yash Potnis, Swachchhand, Amogh Phadake, Navaneeth Venkateshwar
Shreya Sharma, Anoushka Zaveri, Astha Gulati, Dusha, Janhvi Marathi, Meghna Manglani, Mithil Raj Goswami, Riya Soni, Shumaila Shaikh, Vaibhav Kapatia
Nayantara Nayar, Harshini Misra, Abhishek Patil, Adriel George, Swachchhand, Tanushree Kotekeriyana, Dhanendra Kawade, Gurmeet Kaur
Shivani Tanksale, Sahir Mehta, Jayesh Vavhal, Mallika Shah, Vivek Madan,
Vinuta, Brikesh, Nitya, Meera, Karishma, Bodhi, Virat and everyone else at Asar.
Atul Kumar, Anukriti Mishra, Mati Rajput, Yash Potnis, Astha Gulati, Animesh Pradhan, Chrisann Pereira, Prerana, Siddharth Raj, Gargi Ajay Upadhyay
the tafreehwale logo was designed by Anirudha Ghosh.
