OUR STORIES: What Makes it Special

It takes a village to raise a child. It took a community of artists to create Our Stories.

Our Stories is my former Co-AD, Sindu Singh’s brain child. In mid-2019 we decided that we would do a show that would be about South Asian immigrants - their trials and triumphs, their stories. We gathered a few of the regular artists in our repertory, and did a series of workshops at Sathish Sattanathan’s house (Sathish is the director of the Tamil show). People shared their own stories or stories from their network of friends. We debated which ones had potential. Once we decided which ones to go ahead with, we sat down to write the scripts - first in English, by Sindu and me, and then for the Tamil show, Dinesh Chandrasekhar, Raghav Ravichandran, Praveen Vishwanathan and Shakkila Abdul Sathar adapted the English plays into Tamil ones. 

All this work went in, and only then did we start our usual two and a half month cycle of casting and rehearsing the show. Where there was nothing, not even words on paper, there, six months later, would be a main stage show, based on original scripts, with a cast and crew of forty, packed halls, much applause… and then, after the final curtain call, nothing again. Such is the nature of theatre – a flash of brilliance, of beauty, and then… nothing. Just memories.

Except that the first time around, the flash didn’t happen. The show was to open on March 13, 2020. A week before opening night, Covid forced us to cancel the show.

Much has changed since then. The world has been ravaged by a pandemic. Theatres shut down for over a year, and then opened up again with major restrictions. Be that as it may, on this day after Thanksgiving, we are thankful that theatre is back in our lives and that we are able to bring you live, on stage, Our Stories.

Our Stories (English) has been an unusual directorial experience for me. I took on what was almost finished product. Except that it wasn’t.  Many members of the previous cast were not available and we had to cast new actors. Sindu gave me full freedom to make the changes I thought were necessary, which I have. But I have tried to keep the integrity of her vision.  In the end, it is a show that is uniquely ours.

I hope you enjoy Our Stories.

– Basab Pradhan, Artistic Director