About the Play:

Indian Ink is a full-length comedy by Tom Stoppard. The alternation of place and period makes for a rich and moving exploration of intimate lives set against one of the great shifts of history, the emergence of the Indian sub-continent from the grip of Empire.

Indian Ink is a lyrical and erotic mystery of interlocking stories in parallel time frames. Flora Crewe, an unconventional, young English poet living in India in 1930, is having her portrait painted by local artist Nairad Das and writing letters home to her sister Nell. Intermittent scenes, which are set in England in 1980, focus on Nell as she sorts through the cherished letters to aid Flora's would be biographer, Eldon Pike. Within this context, Indian Ink (based on Tom Stoppard's radio play In the Native State) weaves a captivating, whimsical love story that underscores aspects of relationships between cultures and between the sexes that are indelible.

Cast: 4 female, 14 male

What people say:

"A celebration of the power of art and an elegy for its secrets." — The Sunday Times (London)

"Moving and intelligent." — The Guardian (London)

"Charming." — Financial Times (London)

"An evening of wry, romantic melancholia." — The Evening Standard (London)

"A moving and entertaining evening; funny, sad, and touchingly gently." — The Sunday Mail (London)

"This sad, funny play is a wonderfully affectionate remembrance of things past." — The Daily Telegraph (London)

About the Playwright:

Sir Tom Stoppard (1937-2025) was a British playwright often hailed as among the greatest of his generation. Born Tomáš Sträussler in what was then Czechoslovakia, the family fled at the onset of the Nazi invasion finally settling in England when he was eight, and Stoppard adopted the last name of his stepfather. He was catapulted into the front ranks of modern playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. He wrote prolifically for TV, radio, and stage in a career that spanned six decades and also included a parallel career as a Hollywood script doctor, much in demand to provide dialogue to others' film scripts, and shared a best-screenplay Oscar for his contribution to Shakespeare in Love. He was knighted in 1997 and became one of the most honoured dramatists in British theatre.