First Purim Play Ever in Vijayawada!

I'm an OLD professional, as well as a theatre professional, and in March, 2010 I wrote and directed the first Purim play ever performed in Vijayawada, India, under the auspices of the Sanghamitra Service Society. Acted in Telugu AND English by two dozen Dalit children from two rural villages before an audience of several hundred humans, five goats and two water buffalo, THE MAGIC BOTTU was an adaptation of the Purim story where Queen Esther (now Queen Manata) rescued her people from the wicked Prime Minister (Rao Gopala Rao) to bring change and empowerment to their lives.

The play, translated into Telugu by the Sanghamitra staff, was performed on the day before International Women's Day, and was later taken "on tour" by the children to other villages whose citizens felt the sting of oppression everywhere and always in their lives. Its lesson, "It's not enough to hope for justice, you have to work for it too," was taken to heart by performers and audience, and the show concluded with a Telugu version of "We Shall Overcome," by the children's company, fists raised in the air.

If you have special skills, you can "work for justice" in many ways. In Vijayawada, the work was structured through the art of theatre, and the results came in equal measures of courage, self-confidence and love. Guiding my work was the verse from Psalm 118: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." Become a AJWS volunteer and build together a house of justice for those in need to take shelter in.

--Robert Skloot.