The Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) is an initiative by the Mahindra Group of Companies to recognize talent in theatre. This is the second edition of the awards and this year the jury includes noted filmmaker Shyam Benegal and actor-director, Amol Palekar. The awards are not restricted to only categories such as the �Best Play�, �Best Actor� or �Best Director� but cover all areas of the theatre, including the work done backstage.

A cash prize accompanies the award and according to a statuette, it could vary between Rs. 35,000 to Rs 1,00,000. Ravi Dubey, consultant and creative director says that the winners will be announced on 10th March 2007 in Delhi and the event will be like the Golden Globe awards.

It is worth noting that amongst the plays selected, we have three plays from our very own city, Mumbai. COTTON 56, POLYESTER 84 (Hindi) has been written by Ramu Ramanathan who was recently felicitated along with Vijay Tendulkar at the �Roopvedh Pratisthan� Awards� ceremony. The play, which was originally written in English has been translated into Hindi by Chetan Datar and has been directed by Sunil Shanbag. NUMBERS IN THE DARK (English) is a Company Theatre Production, directed by Atul Kumar while BALI AUR SHAMBHU (Hindi) has been written by Manav Kaul.

The other plays are:

APEKSHA (Assamese).
CHEKHOV KI DUNIYA (Hindi).
DARK HORSE (English).
MIRAGE (Tamil).
NATI BINODINI (Hindi-Bengali).
PEER GYNT (Hindi).
TU (Marathi).