Pratibha Agrawal

🪔 About

Pratibha Agrawal, born on August 10, 1930, in Bharatendu Bhawan, Banaras (Varanasi), Uttar Pradesh, India, is a distinguished Indian theatre archivist, actress, scriptwriter, director, writer, and translator. While she began dancing and singing during her studies in Varanasi, her prominent career has been dedicated to theatre and literature. She was educated at Varanasi, Calcutta, and Shantiniketan, where she performed in a dance play directed by Hazari Prasad Dwivedi. Agrawal emerged as a leading heroine in Hindi theatre from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, performing under banners like 'Tarun Sangh' and 'Anamika,' which she co-founded in 1955. She also taught at Shikshayatan College in Calcutta from the mid-1950s to 1970. Her extensive literary work includes original writings, dramatisations, and Hindi translations of notable plays by Ibsen, Tagore, Badal Sircar, Utpal Dutt, and Jayavant Dalvi. In 1981, Pratibha Agrawal founded the Natya Shodh Sansthan in Kolkata, a renowned theatre archive and research institute dedicated to collecting and preserving historical materials related to Indian theatre in various languages. The institute serves as a vital resource for scholars and researchers globally. Her contributions have been widely recognized with numerous awards for her work in theatre and literature, rather than specifically for Indian classical dance. Awards & Honours: Ratna Sadasya Award of the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Akademi (1975), Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan Award (1989), Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Parishad Award (1993), Bharatiya Anuvad Parishad Award (1997), Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for overall contribution to the performing arts/theatre (2005), Aditya Vikram Birla Kalashikhar Award for Excellence in Indian Theatre by Sangit Kala Kendra (2016), Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize (2018).