The Pomegranate Collective’s online play reading initiative in Hyderabad

Five artistes — Pallavi Verma Minnaganti, Madhuri Dempsey, Shikha Gupta, Rahul Premchander and Tarusha Saxena — have come together to revive the Pomegranate Collective in Hyderabad. The Collective includes a group of theatre professionals and enthusiasts. The first in this renewed series is Ananos, an online script-reading initiative named after the Greek term derived from ‘Anagnosi’ meaning ‘reader’.

“There is no single leader here; all five of us have an equal stake in the collective,” says Pallavi, who brought the group back together. The Collective had earlier performed at Dramanon’s SKiTS 2025.

Diverse group

Pallavi is a theatre director and actor and a performing arts instructor at Eager Readers, CHIREC International School and IIT Hyderabad. Madhuri is a writer, while Shikha, Rahul and Tarusha come from backgrounds in expressive arts therapy, creative design and events, and are also active in theatre. In addition to the core group, the collective had Shruti and theatre actor Jonas David as members.

The Pomegranate Collective was formed in February 2025, with the name coined by Pallavi during her exploration of Madhubani art. She was drawn to the fruit as a motif, particularly its many seeds. “They represent our idea of bringing diverse individuals together to create a singular voice on stage,” she explains. “I also love the fruit for its colour and form. Across cultures, the pomegranate symbolises fertility and abundance, which aligns with our aim — to cultivate fertile minds and nurture creativity through many new ideas.” Explaining the motivation behind starting the script-reading initiative, Pallavi says, “Theatre productions were taking too long to be staged, and many were beginning to feel repetitive.”

Of content and movement

A scene from the monologue performed at Dramanon’s SKiTS 2025 — a 12-minute short-play competition 
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Special Arrangement

Members take turns leading brainstorming sessions, held either at one another’s homes or in studio spaces. Pallavi describes these meet-ups as fluid exchanges around content and movement. “Each of us brings a different expertise, which helps us move towards our goals. We reflect on what we’ve achieved — how far we’ve progressed in storytelling — and build from there in the next session.”

The year-old collective’s first devised piece was built around Prospero’s monologue from Shakespeare and performed at Dramanon’s SKiTS 2025 — a 12-minute short-play competition that uses a live camera and onstage screen. The group imagined four characters — an actor, an aspirant, a star and a director — each delivering the same monologue, shaped by their distinct circumstances.

After a brief lull in recent months due to personal commitments, the Collective is now gearing up for a new slate of activities including the online reading initiative. “The online meet-ups help theatre friends from other cities to join,” says Pallavi.

(Updates on their upcoming activities can be found on their Instagram page: @the_pomegranate_collective)