Wednesday 9 December 2015

British Asian Festival: Scratch performances - Rifco Associates

Friday 22 January 2016, 7pm, The Studio @ Watford Palace Theatre

Free event, book online: rifco.eventbrite.co.uk

15 minute scratch performances of new writing by four Rifco Associates from the theatre company’s artist development scheme.

Bollywood Rose by Sumerah Srivastav & Ajay Srivastav

Bollywood Rose follows the story of Nikita, a self-confessed 'dutiful girl' until she meets the man her parents want her to marry. Unable to voice her unhappiness and desperate to escape Nikita stumbles into the worst possible place - a romantic Bollywood movie.

Brownie Club by Jessica Lucia Andrade

Aerialist Jessica presents a physical comedy exploring how it feels to be a brown woman in Britain.

Salvage by Amarjit Bassan

A confident teenager is forced to question his role as the family saviour after his wayward brother unexpectedly arrives at his school.

Dragasauras by Yasmin Whittaker-Khan

A story of three British Asian drag queens all at different stages of their Drag life who are planning to start a club night in London.

Thursday 3 December 2015

Sukh Ojla: Gravesend Project - Rehearsals & Sharing



There were two days of rehearsals set aside for the sharing. I was lucky enough to work with two experienced actors, Narinder Samra and Sheena Patel. The rehearsal process was even more more useful than I had imagined.  After the initial read through of the play it became much clearer to me what I needed to work on. Even though I created the characters, and being an actor myself it is easy for me to imagine them and what they sound like, having actors read the lines really bought them to life. The actors improvised around the scenes and were briefly hot seated. I got a much better idea of the characters objectives and it made me think about their foibles and more detailed nuances in dialogue.

Following the first day of rehearsals, Pravesh and I met to discuss how to develop the script. I made some adjustments to the script. I spent the evening and the next morning re-writing parts of the script. It was hugely useful to get feedback from Pravesh, although frustrating because I wanted to rewrite huge sections of the script and add scenes but unfortunately due to the time constraint this wasn't possible.

The next day we met in the afternoon to read through the latest version of the script. I made some minor changes to the script. The actors were left to make themselves familiar with the script.

The sharing in the evening was attended by fairly large number of people. I was understandably nervous. I felt that as the writer, there was a lot responsibility on my shoulders to make the experience an enjoyable one! Thankfully, the response as overwhelmingly positive. It was heartening to speak to members of the community afterwards who were excited to know what would happen next with the play. 

I spoke with Pravesh after the sharing and we were both pleased with how it went. He advised me to continue writing and to send him a completed first draft as soon as possible.

More about this project: Sukh Ojla - Gravesend Project

Developed by: Rifco & The Woodville
Seeded by: Greenhouse