Reunion, a play being staged by the First Drop Theatre on September 20, is about disabilities, friendship, and identities, says Bejoy Balagopal. The play, Bejoy says, seeks to open up conversations around disability-related themes such as assumptions, judgements, tokenism, policy vs practice, intersectionality with gender, invisible disabilities, and more.
“We wanted to talk about these aspects, but also be a play that engages people,” explains Bejoy, the co-founder of First Drop, which produced the play. “The cast comprises individuals with both visible and invisible disabilities, drawing from lived experiences that are raw, real, and deeply resonant.”
The idea for Reunion first emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, says Bejoy, when many performances transitioned to online platforms. “We thought that since we were all doing it online, we could also reach out to the community of people with disabilities to provide them with training in playback theatre: an improvised format of theatre where you listen to the audience’s stories and improvise on them.”
In response to this, people from different parts of the country expressed interest, and were trained online, he says. This experience led to Bejoy and Radhika Jain, also a co-founder of First Drop, unlearning many of their assumptions about disability. The kernel of the idea of this play emerged from these interactions. “Their personal, lived experiences were discussed, and those aspects were made into a fictional story.”
In Bejoy’s opinion, a play based on the lived experiences of people with disabilities could help the audience appreciate the challenges they face daily and also become more sensitive and aware of them.
“We are aiming to get them thinking about these lived experiences,” he says, pointing out that even finding a disability-friendly performance space was challenging. The show, which is happening at Bangalore International Centre (BIC), is not just wheelchair-accessible but will have Indian sign language interpretation and live audio description, he says, while Radhika, who directed the production, adds. “Accessibility is less about checklists and more about listening, honesty and genuine support.”
Reunion revolves around four childhood friends with different disabilities who reconnect after many years. “They were very close and are meeting after a while in one of their friend’s ancestral homes, which is where they spent a lot of their childhood,” he says.
Through their conversations, jokes, laughter and arguments, the play unpacks the different challenges they faced, and continue to face, on account of their disability, and how it has shaped different responses and approaches from each of them – mirroring the complexities of disability and the empathy that helps to traverse through these complex layers, states Bejoy.
The play will be followed by a panel discussion featuring individuals actively working in this space, including Priti Lobo, Arun Mohan, Madhumita V, and Rakesh Paladugula. “They will pick up some of the things that came up in the play and share their views on what needs to be done.
“It is a wholesome experience for the audience. It looked so real when the characters spoke about it, and here are the experts also saying what we can do as allies and how much groundwork needs to be covered.”
Reunion will be held at the Bangalore International Centre (BIC), Indira Nagar, on September 20, 5:30 pm. Tickets are available at https://shorturl.at/uCvP6, via UPI: 9886185008@ptsbi, or at the venue.
Published – September 16, 2025 02:37 pm IST
