Stray Factory

Stray Factory is a south Indian theatre company formed in 2010 and based in Chennai, India. The company is an entertainment collaborative with a network of actors, writers, musicians and artists. The primary focus of the collaborative is to travel globally with original, local content. ^[1][2]

Stray Factory Entertainment was founded on July 17, 2010 by Mathivanan Rajendran. The group now consists of seven core members. ^[3][4]

The group has experimented with a number of concepts including bar room comedies, blog work, digital content, theatre training, short plays and full length plays. ^[5][6][7] Their biggest achievements have been in the short format, particularly in the Short and Sweet festivals. For their play My Name is Cine-Ma, they won the top three awards at the Chennai edition of the festival: Best Actress, Best Director and Audience Choice. The play then traveled to Mumbai and then Kuala Lumpur where it won in the same three categories. ^[8] Other award winning productions at the festival include Lost Audition, Chairpersons and Maya from Madurai. ^[9][10]

Stray Factory has performed over 20 pieces in 5 countries, including Australia, Dubai and Malaysia. ^[11] In 2012, their award winning short play My Name is Cine-Ma was staged as a 30 minute version at the Kakiseni Theatre Festival, as a street theatre piece. The following year, it premiered as a full length version at the Goodman Arts Center in Singapore. ^[12][13] In 2013, the group toured the country with a number of its short plays, as a part of the seventh edition of The Park's New Festival. ^[14]

Most of Stray Factory's original writing comes from its in-house writers. These include Mathivanan Rajendran, Nikhil Sriram, Naren Weiss and Rajiv Rajaram. ^[15] As a part of the 2012 Metroplus Theatre Festival, local playwright Shreekumar Varma's Ganga at Rishikesh was staged. ^[16]

A number of Stray Factory's members have forayed into films. ^[17] Venkatesh Harinathan plays the lead in Sutta Kadhai and has a supporting role in Irandam Ulagam. ^[18] Mathivanan Rajendran and Pooja Balu were both seen in Selvaraghavan's Mayakkam Enna as well. In addition, Rajendran will also be seen in Vallinam. ^[19]

Footnotes