"Voice training is a journey of curiosity and a continuous investigation of one's humanity."

About Mallika

Mallika Prasad Sinha is a multi-award-winning performer and director. She is the Founder/Creative Director at Actors Ensemble India Forum (since 2007) – a practice-led arts research company.

She has taught at the National School of Drama (NSD), Ninasam Theatre Institute and the University of Hyderabad - in India, and at LASALLE College of the Arts, the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) - in Singapore.

With over two decades of experience as a performer/educator/actor trainer, she has developed Vāchikā – a voice training practice for the contemporary performer. She is an alumnus of NSD India and has an M.A. in Performance Making from Goldsmiths, University of London.

She is currently an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®, the South Asia Regional Head of the Fitzmaurice Institute, and a member of the Advisory Board, for Psychology and Theatre Studies at St. Joseph's University, Bangalore.

Teacher

Voice is the whole deal - the full expression of one’s humanity! As a teacher and coach Mallika enable learners to access and channel this endless resource of creative energy with the spirit of an explorer! She facilitates learning with a sense of curiosity and playfulness.

As a classically trained actor with a successful professional career in film, TV and theatre that spans over two decades, she is familiar with the pressures of being a professional actor in a competitive industry. She specialises in teaching resiliency, self-care and coping strategies for performance related stress and anxiety. Her approach to voice training is holistic and multidisciplinary.

Mallika has taught since 2004. Her training workshops and modules include a broad spectrum of themes such as public speaking, connecting to an intuitive/creative self, finding vocal freedom, empowerment through creative expression, presence work, resiliency, and Rasa as empathy. She has taught artists, teachers, leaders, executives and professionals from diverse industries. She works across three Asian languages in addition to English.

Actor

Mallika has two masters degrees in Acting and Performance Making; one from National School of Drama in Delhi and another from Goldsmiths College in London. She has worked with some of the best directors in the country - Girish Karnad, Anurag Kashap, Abhishek Chaubey to name a few.

She has also had the opportuniy to work alongside some of the greatest actors in cinema and theatre - Shabana Azmi, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, M. Nassar, Manoj Bajpai, Konkana Sen Sharma, Adil Hussain are some of them.

Her acting teachers include Anuradha Kapur, Khalid Tyabji, Anamika Haksar and Naseeruddin Shah.

These stellar influences have refined her skills and enabled an illustrous acting career.

Director

Mallika started directing for the Bangalore stage in 2003. Her ground-breaking productions of Summer and Smoke with Tom Alter, and Brian Friel's Translations, which swept three awards at the first META National festival remain memorable and landmark productions. Her most recent work, Hidden in Plain Sight won the Infallibles Awards for Best Show in 2021 at the Edinburgh Fringe.

"The play has been very sensitively directed by Mallika Prasad. The Irish characters are played by Indians and the English by Englishmen -- an intelligent casting device. Personally it is one of the most sensitive evenings I have seen on Bangalore stage and am writing to urge you not to miss it".

- Girish Karnad, 2004

"A solo theatrical tour-de-force by the astounding Mallika Prasad. A work of originality, heart and mind".

- Jury member - Infallibles Awards, 2021

"As a director, Prasad has courage. She also appears to have the stirring of a genuine confidence in herself as a theatre practitioner and most importantly, she has respect for those with whom she works. Arguably, she will soon bring more to a text than transcription onto the stage -- Bangaloreans can look forward to the privilege of a ringside seat as she continues to grow on and off stage in the city".

- Arshia Sattar, 2006

Qualification

Associate Teacher and Regional Director, South Asia at Fitzmaurice Institute, Los Angeles, USA (2019 – Present)
NLP Practitioner and Coach – NLP Coaching Academy, Bangalore, India (2018)
M.A. (Performance Making), Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK (2011 – 2012)
Post Graduate Diploma (Acting) - National School of Drama, New Delhi, India (1995 – 1998)
B.A. (Economics, Sociology and Political Science), Bangalore University, India (1992 – 1995)

Professional Affiliations

Member of Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) – Presented at the 31st annual International VASTA Conference on the role of voice training in India and Singapore, addressed themes of Decolonising Voice and Speech Training/Interculturalism/interweaving and inter/trans-discilplinarity (LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, 2017)

Advisory Board Member, for Psychology and Theatre Studies at St. Joseph's University, Bangalore

Specialisations

Acting, Diversity/Inclusion, Presence, Private Coaching, Public Speaking, Speech and Dialects, Transgender Coaching, Voiceover.

Faculty Positions

Visiting faculty (FV), National School of Drama, New Delhi (November 2019)
Visiting faculty (Voice and Speech), Rangayana, Dharwad (August 2019)
Director and visiting faculty (Voice and Speech), Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication (annual engagement from 2012 - 2019)
Full-time Faculty for Voice and Speech - Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI), Singapore (2015 - 2017)
Designed and developed a three-year curriculum for the intercultural theatre performer. Students were trained in a variety of Western and Asian voice techniques, accents, dialects, international innovations and recent research work on voice pedagogies.

Voice workshop, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Singapore (2017)
Artist in Residence – Voice and Speech at the School of Dance and Theatre, LASALLE, Singapore (2017)
Visiting faculty (Acting and Voice), National School of Drama – Bangalore (2007, 2010, 2015,)
Director (Acting), Shivakumara Rangaprayoga Shale, Chitradurga (2010, 2013)
Director (Acting and Voice), National School of Drama – Sikkim (2012)
Director, NINASAM Theatre Institute, Karnataka (2001, 2007)
Theatre consultant and facilitator, Azim Premji University, Bangalore (2015)
Founding team member and faculty - Diploma Program - Centre for Film and Drama (CFD), Bangalore (2004 – 2005)

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