The Festival is always a crazy time. There’s photoshoots, designing, printing, assigning duties, talking non-stop, sourcing for food and eating. Eating is always the first thing on people’s mind once they make it to what we lovingly call The Terrace, five stories above the ground without a lift but bang in the middle of Banjara Hills and with ample space for the varied activities (rehearsals, workshops, organizing) we carry on in the premises.
We needed to do photoshoots of the actors to put their pics up on the hoarding, an idea I had to bring some flavor and what I promised ‘magic’ to both the ads and the Festival. Meanwhile, the directors who were up on the hoardings for last year’s fest came in to pose for the brochure pics, disappointed (the newer ones) to find they won’t be blown up 20*10 sizes and will merely make an appearance in a *slick* brochure. The actors in their costume dazzled our photographer for the day, Mr Rama Krishna. Group members ran around the vast length and breadth of The Terrace, sometimes up and down 5 floors for makeup, food again and miscallenous items for the very demanding and highly eccentric theatre actors. Kidding, they were nice as hell, to be honest Team Samahaara was having mood swings on said day. Or I was, I forget which.
The teams that came for the photoshoot, all of them participating in the Samahaara Hyderabad Theatre & Rock Music Festival 2011 were in order of appearance for the photoshoot…Sanjogita in Ek Akeli Aurat for Udaan, giving killer expressions impressing our photographers (joined by Srikanth), holding Team S spellbound, her Udaan teammates cheering her on and yours truly asking her slyly to wear her hottest outfit (commercial and faltu mentality). She scorched up the place with her monologue and solo while the paps clicked away.
Next came St Francis students, who are doing Walimiyan Shaiekpeer Ki Macbeth, a Hydi spoof on Shakespeare’s tragedy. A group of smart looking girls waltzed in, posed like pros, charming us with their kara dupattas and Macbeth in a topi and mucchi. It’s a comedy so their on-stage dialogue and off-stage chemistry (bickering like siblings) had the place in splits. Prabhanj had come from the 12 Angry Men team, being staged by ISFM. Again, a pro. He used the acting techniques taught by our very own Rathna Shekar Reddy, faculty at ISFM and quietly did his part. No hype, no hoopla, just pure good shots. He made sure he got good shots and various costume changes later, he left quietly, giving us the shortest photoshoot with shot after good shot.
Infosys ‘Manch’ team came with their hyper lead actor getting into character in 2 seconds flat. Click click click, done. His director Riyaz Usman, cheered him on and reminded him of the scenes and again, short and sweet while later, we had good shots. His team eyed him as he emoted for our cameras, and a quick goodbye later it was Samahaara’s turn.
As you know, for the first time in the SHTF, Samahaara is staging a play. Old favorite Stu Denison from UK is on his second Indian trip, directing UK playwright Harold Pinter’s Caretaker for us starring Krishna, Rahul Premchander (of Dominic Wesley fame) and Tavish Bhattacharya. Krishna posed for the photographers, as he is playing the title role, and had demanded an endless supply of white paint for his hair earlier.
Finally, last but not the least, Nishumbita’s Deepak came and dressed up in a SARI. Their play is Being Eunuch, and Deepak plays the commanding leader of their akada. He murmured the dialogue as people gaped at him in his finest chamak damak sari and jewelery and a huge bindi glittering to the lights. The last shot, which he posed just for fun, is what we ended up using.
Then Team S posed for pics, till someone told us no one needs our pics. Oh the bane of being the organizers…