New play by Perch

Yesterday evening I dropped in for a rehearsal session of Perch's next play. Its early days yet and they haven't given the new production a name. When I walked in the actors were all sitting around in a circle and discussing the flow of scenes. They said they were planning to do their first run through in half an hour. Since I'm not too great with sketching human figures I thought that this was as good an oppurtunity as any to get all the actors sitting still for me so I started sketching right away.

They mainly discussed who would do what in which scene since the play involves actors, masked figures, hand puppets and shadow puppets. The discussion was really interesting since many roles needed to be shared and switched around behind the back-drop. The makeshift back-drop yesterday was a white dhoti strung across the room and fastened with all manner of clothes-pins.

After the story-boarding and planning session was over we had a quick chai break and then the five actors launched into the performance. Aarti, who is in charge of making the puppets and props, Rajiv, the director and I, were the only people in the audience. It was a great first run. Obviously the script is not totally in place yet, and the actors are still getting to know their props, but the story is whacky and fun and I can imagine it taking many unexpected twists and turns over the next few weeks while it crystalizes.