Born out of improvisation exercises held from October 2007 at FLAME School Of Liberal Education, the impromptu short skits assigned to the student theatre artistes, which saw the students penning their own stories within a short span of 30 minutes and then later on acting them out sans any orchestration, were put together into a final theatrical piece called Dangalnama. To this assortment of short plays, adding his inputs and adding the final touch-ups was Prasad Vanarase, associate dean of the institute. Not decorous and employing the technique of improvisations, in the form of 'simultaneous dramaturgy' the actors – 'cardboard citizens', collectively reflect the several riots since 1993 that the country still mourns about.

Now the zany play is going to be staged at London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) Festival 2008 in Stratford between June 13 and 18 at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. The play that sees interplay between dark humour and disturbing veritable sequences of riots will open the LIFT Festival along with performing six other shows for them. The 90-minute jeu d'esprit also picks up a work of Bhishma Sahani and involves the excerpt from it in its heady routines that take a gibe at the government.

"The idea behind the play was to put together the survival stories of riot victims and our way of conducting the play, employing the technique of improvisation, gave a realistic edge with each actor living the moments and through the trauma one might have suffered," Varanase says.

One of the cast members and a soi-disant prankster, 18-year-old Namrata Anirudh recounts her imitating her fellow actors during the rehearsals and vividly remembering the exercise of narrating one's real life experiences dealing with trauma that brought everyone close to tears. "The months-long preparation for the play was a cathartic experience and we evolved both as actors and human beings," she says.