Damu Kenkre

Damu Kenkre was a well-known Marathi Director who was born in 1928. His original name was Damodar Kashinath, and he was born in Margao, Goa. He studied as a commercial artist and brought a complete transition of Marathi theatre from the traditional to the modern. As he was inspired from Parshwanath Altekar, he started his career in the 1940s as a theatre artist and director at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's intercollegiate one-act competition, where he modernized stagnant techniques and provided him knowledge about the use of costumes, music, lights and other techniques, which are used in production and direction. Thereafter, he went to East Germany in 1955 and was trained in the United Kingdom for a year.

On his return, Damu directed different projects. First, he directed and played a lead role in an adaptation of Shakespeare's play, ‘Hamlet’ in 1956. In 1957, he acted in P.L. Deshpande's ‘Tujheahetujapashi’ (To Each His Own) and ‘Sundar mi Honor’ (I Shall Be Beautiful) in 1958 for the Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh. Before pursuing direction as a professional career, he directed and acted in numerous productions for Marathi Sahitya Sangh. Later, he started directing plays. Some of his most popular plays are Hamlet, Tendulkar's naturalistic ‘Manns Navache Bet’ (An Island Called Man) in 1956, Ashok Paranjape's folk ‘Atun Kirtan Varun Tamasha’ (Kirtan Inside, Tamasha Outside) in 1957, S. N. Pendse's problem play ‘Asajhala Ani Ujadla’ (And Then It Became Day) in 1969, Ratnakar Matkari's comedy ‘Birhad Bajla’ (Bag and Baggage) in 1972, Vasant Kanetkar's melodrama ‘Akhercha Sawal’ (Last Question) in 1974, etc.

Kenkre has also worked as a professor at Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. He also served as the Dean of the School of Art, Aurangabad. He was also the Director of Cultural Affairs at the Government of Maharashtra and Chief of the Kala Academy, Goa, which was also founded by him. Besides, he was the director for the Goa Hindu Association and later, became the President of Antarnatya, an experimental theatre group as well. For his outstanding career, Kenkre was awarded with the ‘ Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Story soon >> Read More... ’ in 1974 and received ‘Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar’ in 2008. At the age of 81, he passed away in 2008 after a prolonged illness.