TAR and his wife Dheepa have been staging plays in US since 2001 and in all the plays, the story is set in India.

“Our audience did like those plays, but they kept asking us to do a play based out of USA. As we started putting together the storyline, we realized that it would be very tough to do it any of the Indian languages, so we decided to do it in English. I was inspired by the Zen philosophy about Seeds and Flowers and I thought it’s an appropriate title, given the Seeds are sown in India and the flowers blossoming in the US,” explains TAR.

They run a theatre group under the banner KREA in the Bay Area, US and are now travelling to India – Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai to stage the play. They don’t have big budgets for promotions as the whole team is travelling on their own expenses, so do pass on this information to friends, family who would be interested and lend them a helping hand! All their plays are staged for charity, so all the more reason.

Details:

– July 7th at Music Academy, Chennai @ 7.30 PM

– July 12th at ADA Rangamandira, Bangalore @ 7.30 PM

– July 14th at Rangasharda, Mumbai @ 7.30 PM.

For tickets and other details contact:

DV Ramana on 093400 30933
Dheepa Ramanujam – dramanujam@yahoo.com

For further information, do visit: Seeds And Flowers

I shot TAR a few questions about the play and his group. Here are his responses.

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Can you tell us a little more about the show itself? What kind of response has it received there?

We got a fantastic response and due to popular demand, we are staging it again on October 6th in the Bay Area. Most of the Indian families who came for the play could connect with the story because they have been watching the stunning growth in India and some of them are disappointed that they are not part of that growth. There are always ‘serious’ discussions going on in most of the families about going back to India but only a very few of them have really taken the step to relocate. That aspect, people could connect lot more in the US. Also, we have a very powerful CEO character in the play who people could connect to. This play would give a perspective to the life we lead here in the US – microwaving food, constant complaint about living in the US but not willing to move back, lay-offs, peer pressure, etc. Also, the story line in itself is universal and it could happen in any of the metros in the world – Japan, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, etc.

From a presentation standpoint our shows have a very high production value and one would get a feel that they are watching events happening at a neighbor’s place through a door or window. People keep commenting that the success of our plays is our casting and they do not see the actors and just the characters.

Who are the actors full time performers or they do this in their free time? Are they all from India and of Indian origin?

All the actors are of Indian Origin. Krea was founded by Dheepa and she is full time into theatre managing the household and driving our teenage daughter to schools and various classes. Dheepa also does voluntary work for various dance programs as she is a qualified stage director and make-up artist. Vidhya Subramanian who plays the second female lead is a very popular Bharatanatyam dancer and runs her own school.

All others are full time technology professionals and are volunteers who are passionate about theatre and acting. Just to give you a glimpse as to the commitment, we meet every weekend for 12 weeks before the play is staged to rehearse and discuss about various elements. On an average everybody drives around 25 to 50 miles each time to meet and rehearse. Each time we rehearse it’s a good 4 hours and as we get closer to the show date, we do full run throughs. In order to do this, you need to be really passionate about what you do.

Apart from the actors we have a full fledged backstage team, who are again volunteers and most of them are full time employees. They spend more time during the weekends to get the sets. If you see our photos of Seeds and Flowers, the complete kitchen set up, the painting at Doctor’s clinic, the entire Tarbucks Café set up were all done by our volunteers. They are again so passionate about this and they do not mind spending hours just to connect with their passion 3 months a year.

What made you think of travelling to India? What kind of a response are you expecting?

Our musical drama ‘Sruti Bhedham’ was very well appreciated in US when we inaugurated in 2005 and staged it in Chennai in July 2005 and we got a very good response. All the actors came to Chennai exclusively for this purpose. I have enclosed the link of the review we got in ‘The Hindu’.

Last year we staged a play with just Dheepa and the other female lead from the US and collaborated with Tamil theater artists (from various groups) from Chennai and we traveled to Bangalore and staged it in Ranga Shankara. This time the storyline being very relevant to technology professionals, we started with the idea of staging it in Chennai and Bangalore and majority of the cast felt that this play would be received well in Mumbai too.

The entire team is traveling from US at their cost and 2 weeks of their 3 weeks annual vacation is used for this. We got a couple of sponsorship and our friends from India are trying to get us sponsorship and also help in ticket sales in each city.

The profit from this play would be donated to ‘Udavum Karangal for one of their projects – Jeevan. Jeevan is a school run by Udavum Karangal for special children (mentally challenged). Krea is a not for profit organization.

This play would provide an opportunity for the Indian audience to get a glimpse of the lifestyle of a typical Indian immigrant. There are some lighter moments in the play, which may not be applicable to Indian lifestyle and if you go beyond that you will find a theme which is universal in nature. I can also confidently say that the presentation of the play will be lot different from the usual ones.

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If you’re in any of the three cities they’re staging the play, do go over and watch it!