Chandigarh : Senior Student artists of Wings Theatre Academy enacted Three Short Stories as a prat of their Annual Presentation at Auditorium of St Kabir Public School, Chandigarh. The stories by eminent writers, Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl, Playing Fields of Simla by Ruskin Bond and Transgression by Anton Chekov were staged.
The cast comprises entirely of children between the ages 12 and 17, who have been training with the academy over the last eight months. The young actors belong to various schools from the tricity, to name a few are St Kabir, Vivek High, St John’s, Strawberry Fields and Gurukul Global.

The Opening Story “Lamb to the Slaughter” was published in 1953, is about a wife killing her husband with a leg of lamb and has elements of dark comedy and an unexpected ending, typical of Roahl Dahl. The cast includes Sanika B Singh (Mary Maloney), Abhimanyu Gupta (Patrick) and Raunak Ahluwalia, Aryaman, Uday & Akshay as detectives. “Playing Fields of Simla” is an autobiographical story, based on the author’s childhood memories of his school in the hills and his separation from a friend during the partition of 1947. The main theme of the story revolves around friendship and nostalgia. Ruskin is played by Irane, Akshay (Omar), Ameen (Mr. Fisher), Shobika Bali (Ruskin’s Mom) & Aryaman (Dad). The show closes with “Transgression” by Russian author Chekov, a fictional story depicting wry humor. A collegiate assessor, who has an illegitimate child, finds a baby bundled on his front doorstep and the story details the inner struggle the man feels when deciding what to do with the baby.
The stories have been directed by Zubin Mehta, a known name in the theatre circle of Chandigarh, especially children’s theatre. According to the director “The idea of three stories not only adds different flavors to the performance from an audience’s perspective but also gives an opportunity to the actors to play multiple characters. “Playing Fields of Simla is my personal favorite and very close to my heart” adds the director.

The Assistant Directors for this production who played a crucial role were Namita Chandhoke & Cherish Santoshi, Costume design & execution by Charu Gupta, Set & prop design by Mallika Chabba and Production management was taken care of by Jasbir Kaur.