The Sultan Padamsee Award and The Bombay Theatre Group

The Sultan Padamsee Award

Theatre Group Bombay (TGB) is India’s longer running English language theatre group. 

Formed in 1941 by 20 year old Sultan ‘Bobby’ Padamsee, after his return from London.

Bobby had been hugely influenced by the New York's 'Group Theatre' movement', which had been shaking up the theatre scene with its idealism and artistic fanaticism.

The group has since seen a different generation of spearheads with each passing decade. 

Bobby was a theatre actor died by suicide to end the promising career. With the tragic passing away of Bobby in 1946 (at the tender age of 26). But his zeal and passion was kept alive by his peers. 

Ebrahim Alkazi, Deryck Jeffereis, Hamid Sayani and Alyque Padamsee took over the stewardship of the group. 

The Headquarters of TG is still Kulsum Terrace in Colaba. Home of Bobby.

The Sultan Padamsee Award

In memory of Sultan ‘Bobby’ Padamsee, the Theatre Group of Bombay has instituted the Sultan Padamsee Award for Playwriting in 1966.

The Sultan Padamsee Awards for Playwriting (original plays written in the English Language by playwrights of Indian Origin) are given every two years to the most deserving plays.

After 14 years gap, it was brought back in 2011 by the Theatre Group only to be interrupted again.

Since 2016, the biennial (every two years) competition has been in partnership with Tata Literature Live!

Alyque Padamsee (1928–2018) was an Indian theatre personality and ad film maker. He played Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1982 British period film Gandhi. He was conferred with Padma Shri in 2000.

Prominent winners of this award:

Gurcharan Das‘s Larins Saheb,

Geive Patel’s Princes,

Dina Mehta’s The Myth Maker,

Cyrus Mistry’s Doongaji House in 1978,

 

2011 — Ram Ganesh Kamatham’s Ultimate Kurukshetra,

 

2016 —Joint Winners: Vinnet Bhalla’s A Farming Story; Ramneek Singh’s Parvati’s Dark Children (joint winners). Runners: Satinder Kaur Chohan’s Lotus Beauty; Faezeh Jalali’s Shikhandi: A Story of the In-betweens --- cash prize of INR 3 lakhs and 2 runners-up to win INR 25,000 each.

2018 — Bettina Gracias’ Watching You & Sneh (Sneha) Sapru’s Hello Farmaish (joint winners)

2020 — Ram Ganesh Kamatham — Undaunted (documented winner; this gives Ram Ganesh Kamatham his second Sultan Padamsee win)

2022 — V Balakrishnan’s God’s Will (joint winner)

2024 — Meera Sitaraman’s All That Matters — (2024 winner); runners are: Ram Ganesh Kamatham’s Terrarium; Parashar Kulkarni’s Cow & Court, and Bettina Gracias’s Lhasa.