Check out our Behind the Scenes Trailer for our first short film, Just A Prayer, written by Farah Merani, directed by Caris Reid, and starring Farah Merani, Huse Madhavji, Janice Wu, and Karen Ivany Courtesy of Alex Humilde and Shawn Ramsay

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A lot of changes have happened in 2012.. We emerged and retreated and emerged again. We performed, produced, and co-produced. We traveled, we moved, and we revisited. We danced, we played, and we laughed. But most importantly, we never gave up.

So here we are, at the brink of a new year preparing and planning for a slew of new projects and ventures. Big things are coming and we’re excited…

Stay posted!

Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year!

-LFG

A lot has happened since then. Sadly, we didn’t reach our target on KKBB in time (though, we were so close it hurts!). So, we’re re-strategizing and getting back in the saddle for the future of not only this project, but a few other germs of ideas that are in development. And it’s very exciting!

One of the best things about the post-show blues are the comments and discussions the show inspires. Here are a few snippits from various audience members who saw the show and kindly shared their thoughts with us:

“It was a very impressive production, and I was fascinated by the many cultural nuances in the play which I’d never been exposed to before. Tiny shifts of vision, which are hard to put onto words but  are obviously very important.  I thought the musicians were wonderful, and the actors did a great job. I was delighted I could understand a bit of the Bengali! [...] Very many congratulations on your excellent production of an enlightening play.” – Alice Sielle, Independent Artist

“What a fantastic play! We thoroughly enjoyed Londonee – very well directed, acted and delivered.” –Lata Desai, Musician and Chairwoman of London Sitar Ensemble

“First off, I came along to Londonee on Friday and really enjoyed it. Such a fantastic and inspiring production with brilliant performances. Congratulations to you both! Fingers crossed that we can find another home for it and continue its run. It really deserves it.”  –Emily Bray, Agent at Independent Talent Group

If these words are any indication, we can surely rest contented and be proud of a job well done!

Bevan and Indranyl balance their strength

Props!

Rehearsal Studio @ Rich Mix, London

And we’re just getting started….

Two rehearsal bonuses today – writer Gurpreet on hand and we were once again in our performance space.  As usual, began with our tai chi warm up and focus.  Thought we were doing quite well until director Mukul informed us the one move we have learnt takes a professional half an hour, that’s how much stamina and control they have!  We still have a way to go…!  Then we performed our 18 scenic images to Mukul, designer / stage manager Ni and Gurpreet, ending with the Bengali song we learnt yesterday.  A quick pee break and we were straight into an on your feet run of the play – this time using our animal characters and mannerisms for an OTT version.  Needless to say switching between a grizzly bear and a vulture and being in other people’s scenes too was exhausting and we were all rather sweaty at the end but it threw up some interesting things to think about in terms of character relationships and how another person in the play may influence our actions, even if they are not physically in the scene.  Taking everything to a primal level helped a lot.

We then worked on groups of scenes – angels, girls and boys – until the end of the day.  It was refreshing to be able to play around with the scenes and question the lines and the subtext without the pressure of blocking, but having the freedom to move in the space.  It feels like we are already adding so many layers each day and asking more and more questions about the play.

Very exciting beginning today as we were moved from our green room space to the actual studio we will be performing in!  It’s much wider and deeper than we’d imagined, can’t wait to perform in it.  After our tai chi warm up, we worked out images for all 18 of our titled scenes, then sounds to accompany them.  This was brilliant for ensemble building and group bonding and for us all to have an overall picture of the shape, themes and rhythms of the play.  We then did some work with our character’s objects which helped us learn more about all the parts and the relationships between the characters.

After lunch we chose animals for our characters and worked on the physicality of each character in their environment and interacting with the other character-animals.  We learnt the last song of the play in Bengali and experimented with instruments and harmonies.  This was both calming and uplifting and I think it will work brilliantly when we have our live musicians onstage.  We ended with some quick fire hot seating (where I found out one of my characters is 220 years old!) and some leading exercises which will link in later to working out who is driving which scene.  All in all a good day and nice to be on our feet!

Monday 7th May

First day of rehearsals can often feel like the very first day of school – that mixture of nervousness and excitement.  So much so that I woke up a full hour earlier than I needed to at 6.30am.

I got into our rehearsal room at Rich Mix at 9.30am and immediately felt comforted by two things – Mukul the director putting up a poster of the play on the wall and two actors already drinking the coffee that had been provided.  By 10.30am I had met the rest of the cast, Tara our music / movement consultant and Gurpreet the writer, seen the beautiful costume designs done by designer Ni and we’d all done a tai chi warm up led by Mukul (it is harder than it looks tai chi!).  Production Manager Ashleigh gave us a bundle of flyers and by lunchtime I had already invited two people to see the show! The cast and Ni all ate lunch together in the Rich Mix cafe and found out various important things about each other, such as our ages and how we got involved in the production.

The day went very quickly considering we got so much done:  Two full read throughs of the play (the pressure was taken off by Mukul instructing us to ‘not act at all.  No emotion.  Like you’re reading the news.  It’s just facts’), the invaluable chance to ask Gurpreet some character questions, some script edits and our last exercise – naming each scene of the play with a title and deciding on the colour, energy and emotion of that title.    I have read the play several times and instantly liked the script, laughing to myself alone in my flat on certain lines, but it really came alive in the read through and I felt genuinely moved in parts of it.  The whole day felt very organic and it was great that everyone was encouraged to bring ideas to the table – whether on the production team, creative team or one of the actors.

The day ended with homework – to write down for each scene we are in what we think of each of the other characters and what they think of us.  Tomorrow we will share our findings, I can’t wait!