User Profile

Head of School, Drama School Mumbai

Jehan Manekshaw is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Theatre Professionals Pvt. Ltd. He is also a Co-Founder and Head of School at the Drama School Mumbai. For Theatre Professionals, Jehan has co-designed and developed tailor made programmes and engagements that provide schools with a robust drama strategy for their school, weaving the powerful learning of drama-in-education methods and strategies into the schools teaching and learning practices. Since 2008 Theatre Professionals Education has partnered with over 30 schools in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, setting up entire in-house drama departments in the process. Jehan also oversees multiple workshops and residencies for drama specialists and drama educators to advance the practice of drama applied to education. As Head of the Drama School Mumbai, Jehan leads pedagogy and course design for the 30 faculty and guest faculty, comprising of some of the most notable names in Indian Theatre. The DSM’s one year PG course in Acting and Theatre Making is in its 6th year, having graduated 70 students who are all active in the fields of theatre, film, tv and applied theatre. For the achievements of these two organisations, Jehan has been acknowledged by a number of publications. Most notably, Jehan received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Ustad Bismillah Khan yuva puraskar for advancement of the practice of Theatre in India. He holds a MFA in Theatre Direction from Birkbeck College, University of London, an MA in Global Media and Transnational Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London and a BA in Theatre and International Relations from Wesleyan University, CT, USA. When Jehan is not trying to get his two institutional babies to grow up and get out of the door, he is busy raising his 4 year old son Aden. Both Jehan and Aden are trying to make space for the woman in their life Shaizia who has her hands full with the most recent addition to our family, a 2-month old baby girl, Zaya. When Shaizia is not being mother to all of the above, she continues to lead content design for Theatre Professionals Education. Jehan’s idea of decompressing and winding down for the week is to watch documentaries on large logistical feats of human achievement, read articles about near-future predictions, and attempt to come up with magic-pill solutions for world peace, the political system in India, and other things that need fixing. He is a Fellow of the seventh class of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.