An IMM-Permanent Resident

A comedy infused with Bollywood elements, An IMM-Permanent Resident is a hilarious take on the mundane and tiresome bureaucracy of the Canadian Immigration process, as experienced by playwrights and real-life couple, Himanshu and Neha. The play explores the irreverent journey to obtain Neha’s PR status, including the couple’s trials and tribulations as they put their hopes and dreams on pause (indefinitely). Through wit and creative banter, this fast-paced roller coaster transports us between Mumbai and Toronto, as Neha and Himanshu navigate the immigration system and ask themselves – is love worth it all?

www.nautankibazaar.ca
Tickets: whynot.theatre/work/immpermanentresident

Himanshu Sitlani is a thespian, originally hailing from Mumbai. Foraying his way into theatre as an actor, he progressed on to other creative aspects and worked as a Stage Manager and Producer over the years with QTP and Akvarious. He co-founded Le Chayim Theatre Productions in Mumbai in 2006 where he eventually made his directorial debut in 2013. Since immigrating to Toronto Canada, Himanshu’s been immersed in supporting the creative arts, working as Patron Services Manager at Factory Theatre, while penning down his ideas towards his goal of creating a bridge between creative artists in Canada and India eventually co-founding Nautanki Bazaar in 2019.
In 2021, he wrote and performed in the virtual show “Stories of a Dish’ that was presented at the Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe, The Little Lion Theatre Festival in London UK, The Tata Literature Live Festival in Mumbai India and the Next Stage Theatre Festival in Toronto.

Twitter: @himy316
Instagram: @himanshu.sitlani

Neha Poduval is a trained actor, with several feathers in her creative hat, having performed in various theatre plays, corporate films and TV shows across India. A post-graduate in Acting from the reputed Film and Television Institute of India, she continued her association with the performing arts since moving to Canada.
In January 2021, she launched her YouTube Cooking Channel “Mustard Tempered Dreams” where she shares her love for food with easy to make Indian and global vegetarian recipes.

Neha is also a certified Yoga Teacher and has been teaching Yoga across various studios, community and senior centres in Toronto.

Instagram: @mustard_tempered_dreams

Miquelon Rodriguez is a sound designer, composer, radio play mixer & editor, digital content creator, actor, and an emerging arts leader based in T’karonto. He was the Apprentice Artistic Director at Factory Theatre from 2017-2019, under the mentorship of Nina Lee Aquino, and co-curated Pan-Asian works over two seasons at Soulpepper through the Tiger Bamboo Festival and the Shen Development Series. He is an Artistic Leadership Resident with the National Theatre School of Canada and has worked with a multitude of artists and companies across Turtle Island.

Twitch: www.twitch.tv/troysteel
Twitter: @djtronix
Instagram: @troysteel

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Transcript

Welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host of this podcast. This is episode 316.

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Even retweeting a post can have a huge effect. You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at stageworthypod and you can find the website with the archive of all 316 episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby, and as I mentioned, my website is philrickaby.com. My guests this week are Himanshu Sitlani, Neha Poduval, and Miquelon Rodriguez. Himanshu and Neha are the writers and performers, and Miquelon the director of An Impermanent Resident, a Bollywood-infused comedy about the mundane and tiresome bureaucracy of the Canadian immigration process.

An Impermanent Resident runs from April 1st to April 10th as part of Why Not Theatre’s Riser series. Here’s our conversation. So to jump in, could you, one of you, two of you, as many people as want to jump in, tell me about Impermanent Resident.

Okay, let me go first. So the Impermanent Resident is a show that we wrote. It’s a story about the process that I went through to get my Canadian permanent residency.

It was a whole thing that we actually had to go through. There was a lot of bureaucracy that we had to go through. To put it in short, it took almost three and a half years for the process to complete.

Yeah, there was a whole thing of even at some point where we got a letter saying, is your marriage real? And just the number of times that we had to fill forms and submit documents which were completely unnecessary just to get this one physical card that says, you’re approved to be Canadian now, and then now you’re welcome into our country. Was there a lot of repetition in terms of the forms? Like, were you answering the same kinds of questions over and over? Oh my god, yes. Over and over.

Yeah, because there are five forms that each person needs to fill, and it’s pretty much the same. And at some point when we were looking at both the forms, we were like, I don’t even know whose form this is because it’s exactly the same. I think it’s one of those Kafka-esque processes, it sounds like.

Yeah, because it was also the number of times we had to fill it. Like I mentioned, every time we got a letter stating, oh, this is missing, this is not, this is missing, we just had to keep re-updating the form. And so basically, we ended up filling the application process almost four times.

That is a lot of times to fill out a form. And just to say, basically, this is our name, this is our address, and this is why we want to come to Canada. So how does that process translate to this stage? I think that you can answer that.

Yeah, I can take that one. So this was a story that was, it was a short story, wasn’t it first, Neha? Yes, it was. It was a short story first.

And at Factory Theatre, through the Foundry program, through the Playwright program, Himanshu and Neha’s story was pitched to be a script to be developed, at least for a first draft. And I was part of that writing group as well during my time at Factory. And it was very clear that this comedy that was written became something of a, almost like a variety memory play that moves through, moves chronologically through the story a little bit.

It does have some flashbacks, but it’s one of those kinds of shows that isn’t just about point A to point B. Here’s what happens chronologically. It was very much, here’s all of the wild and wacky and sometimes very hard-hitting and emotionally weighted ways that this process of so many attempts at trying to just get paperwork through and submitted and just turned it into a comedy. And I think that it fits it oddly well, especially with the goal of it to be a comedy, or at least to be much lighter than how the story could go, or could have gone even.

Because at that point when we were completed the first drafts of all of our plays and they had completed their draft during our time at Factory, they still hadn’t gotten the results of their latest attempt at permanent residency. And it wasn’t until, spoilers, it wasn’t until the day that we presented excerpts from it for an audience that I found out that they had just gotten it. The story had a conclusion.

And it was just kind of amazing to see them pull this off, pull this kind of story off. And it was what made Factory pick it up for further development the following season. And in that season is when I was helping to facilitate the workshop that I realized, oh, I have a lot of, I’m picturing the scenes of this as we’re reading it.

Compared to when we were writing it, I was so focused on my own script that it just never came to mind to think about even developing beyond just the first draft. Yeah, it was stellar. So while this was being created, there was, the ending or what the ending would be was completely unknown.

Correct. It was there, like, was there an alternate ending if the, if you hadn’t received it while you were creating the play? I don’t think we actually had an ending because it was one of those wig endings where we left it at a point where. Yeah, we left it kind of open ended where the audience don’t really know if it’s happened or not.

Yeah. So yeah. Because it ends at a point where it could have gone, it could go anywhere.

It’s like, but did they get it? Did they not get it kind of thing? So we left it there. And at some point, like doing the process, we were just like, you know what? That’s a very good ending. We’re just going to keep it until we find what happened.

And even after everything worked out, we still felt that there was still a good ending to end the play, basically. Now I’m curious about, because you mentioned that there’s all kinds of different styles. I know that you’ve mixed in some Bollywood aspects.

Tell me about putting those in and building that musical sensibility into the play. Honestly, as we were going through the whole process, the whole thing actually did feel like a Bollywood movie to us with the absolute drama and the comedy and the silliness of a lot of things that were happening. It actually did feel like a Bollywood film.

And so many times we were like, oh, my God, this is a Bollywood film. Yeah, we would make songs about it. We would just take Bollywood tunes and just like, oh, this is how we’re going to fill the form kind of thing.

And actually, because we’re both from Mumbai, the land of Bollywood, and Neha is actually a trained film actor from the Film Institute of India. So even when she was writing, her visual sense of while putting it on paper was very visual and Bollywood style. And I can create from the complete opposite end where I’m like, hardcore theatre.

No, no, we have to keep this theatre thing going. But Neha was like, don’t you dare do that. Let’s get the Bollywood in.

And we just kept going with it. And we found out that there was a lot more elements in it. And because we went through it, so it just made sense to just add it and hype it up, basically.

To me, it feels like the adding in those Bollywood aspects would heighten the drama as well as sort of give it more of a, maybe a little bit more over the top, but give it more colour, more pop. That’s what I think it would sound like. Is that what you found when you added it? Yeah.

I guess also because, I mean, because of the type of theatre that I have seen. We could have gone with the standard, like, you know, we’re going to keep doing the play like how we wanted to do state style. But we’ve never actually seen anything like Bollywood-ish.

Not that it’s a big thing, but I think it was important for us to incorporate it into the show just to tell our story because that’s our background, pretty much. Yeah. Also, Bollywood is such a big part of our life.

And thank God for Bollywood, actually. Whatever we went through, just because we had that lens to look through at these problems that we were going through, I think we could handle it pretty much better than otherwise, you know. I often think about the, you know, what is theatre and what is other aspects? Like, how could you not put in something that was so much a part of where you came from and your background and where you were trained? The rules of what makes theatre, I think sometimes can serve to be broken.

Like we can play in genre more than we think we can and throw in as many things as we feel we need to. As you describe it, it sounds like the Bollywood aspect, something would be missing if you didn’t put that in. Exactly.

But it’s also a lot to do with the theatre training back home in India. When you do theatre, you’re trying to avoid Bollywood because Bollywood is everywhere. So the one place that you don’t want to have too much Bollywood is in the theatre and keep it like a space.

But in Canada, we actually had to untrain ourselves because we can actually add our own culture as part of the show and we can incorporate it, which is very different than what we’ve been taught back home. But it was very important, we felt, to incorporate it. Mm hmm.

Mickey, I’m curious about your role in this part of production. What was your part in helping to bring this to the stage? You mentioned being there as they were working on theirs and you were working on yours and now working to bring it to life. Tell me about that process for you.

Yeah, absolutely. It was in the season after it was written and went through workshops and through multiple attempts at stage readings. It’s kind of the story of this play is that it’s third or more times the charm to make any of it move forward.

Why did it take us three times to put it up again? One was weather. What was the other one? So the first time was the big snowstorm in January and then it was rescheduled to March. But then I think a mat was unavailable.

Yeah, I think that’s what it was. Yeah, and yeah, Matt was unavailable. So that’s why we had to reschedule it for the third time.

Yeah. And then, of course, the pandemic gave us two extra years to think about what we wanted to do with it. But essentially, after doing the stage reading, it was really clear to me some of the choices that would make this as fun as it is written.

And for the first time kind of ever for myself, I kind of wanted to direct it, to direct something. And I’d gone through Factory’s Director Enhancement Training Program the year prior and I got to work with Philip Aiken in that regard on The Men in White, but I’d never directed anything on my own before. So I’m very thankful that Himanshu kind of let me give it a shot.

And really, it wasn’t until Himanshu came up to me one day in the office and said, hey, we got into Riser, the Riser Festival from WhyNot, that I went, oh, it’s real. It’s time. Oh, no.

But I think part of what makes this process or what has made this process less scary for me is in the fact that we were friends through the process of creating it. So I kind of had a head start and an insight into it because part of the exercises that we did while coming up with our drafts was to do something related to each of the playwrights’ plays. And of course, for an impermanent resident, we were all sitting around filling out immigration forms.

And just so that we, as the other playwrights, could physically, viscerally feel what it’s like to fill out the same damn information multiple times as if you couldn’t read it off the first sheet. Government of Canada. So it was very, that for me was, I actually understood why they went comedy from filling out those forms because they were ridiculous.

And I don’t know any other way to make something that feels so mundane yet have such huge consequences on the rest of your life translate to the stage in any other way that’s not going to hurt somebody than comedy. Because I either go in my mind, in my very emerging director mind, it could either have been a play about filling out forms and then it just becomes, I guess, I don’t even know. And then the other option is that it is just this process where someone just feels stuck for years and years.

And then you just talk about the void that that is or tell a story about that void. So I’m so grateful that Neha and Himanshu went comedy because it made sense to me that they went that way, not only because of the ridiculousness of the process, but because of just their personalities and the fact that they used comedy to just get through it. I mean, as they described, like without the Bollywood movies and music to sort of help them along the way through the process, it would have just felt maybe hopeless.

Go ahead. Yeah. And it was also, I mean, the amount of anguish that we went through and the entire process, especially for Neha.

I mean, I still could go out, do things, work. But Neha was just cooped up at home for that three, three and a half years waiting for this one letter saying that she’s approved to be Canadian so she could start work. So, I mean, the only way we could relate to that anguish for us was through comedy because there was nothing else.

It was just, instead of just being sad all the time, the only way we got through that entire time period was just trying to make each other laugh and like try and see the bright side of these things. So I think the comedy just came out while writing them. It kind of makes sense because at a certain point, especially with that kind of ridiculous bureaucracy, you have two options, and that is to cry or to laugh and probably better to laugh.

Exactly. One of the things that I like to do is to talk to people and hear their stories about how they found their way to the theatre, like into this industry. Now, Mickey, as a director, you mentioned the Men in White, which, by the way, one of the funniest and also heartbreaking plays I have ever had the pleasure to see.

I’ll start with you and ask you about your road to, because you wear many hats. Yes. What brought you to the theatre and what made you decide that directing was what you wanted to do with all of the hats that you have around you? Oh, yeah.

It’s a lot of hats, so I’ll probably need a separate episode for that. But I fell in love with performing through improv, but specifically through the original Whose Line Is It Anyway that used to be on YTV all the time when I was a kid. I brought that to, I think it was my grade six teacher, and I said, Hey, have you ever watched Whose Line? And I just asked if we could play some games, because we usually had like a drama hour where we would just do theatre games.

And she said yes, and I ended up running those games. And that kind of set it all off. I went into high school.

I stumbled into improv again in high school with the Canadian Improv Games because a teacher came into our school, Sarah Agathos, and she introduced the idea of competitive improv into our school, and I fell in love with it. And that was essentially what most of my creative energy was focused on for the entirety of my, back in the day, five years of high school because of OAC. And that process of always being in the drama room, always doing improv, always being with other people who love drama and who love theatre, it made me want to really pursue it and continue into acting.

And I was very fortunate to have a drama teacher, Mr. Lee, who refused to write my reference letter to York unless he acknowledged at how hard it would be to try and do something in theatre professionally. And he just, and so I admitted that I’m probably, I’m probably going to face a lot of suffering. And I do realize that it’s hard.

And luckily, he signed that letter. And then I went to York. I majored in devised theatre.

And that translated into me being taught by Michael Grayeyes. And he was the first person to hire me professionally as a sound designer for, and a music composer. So one of my hats is that I also was trained in piano since I was like six or seven years old.

And that just flipped into an interest in audio as well and an interest in producing music. And all of those things combined meant that anytime we were doing projects in university, I was the guy making sound, soundtracks for the projects. And it caught, it caught Michael’s attention, luckily.

And I ended up being what I called myself as like his composer on retainer for a few of his dance pieces over the course of like close to a decade, maybe it was seven years, seven or eight years. And, but it was really, it was really that between that and then the classmates that I had that also continued into theatre and we continued to collaborate through different indie companies. I found myself doing like a parallel track or not a parallel track, just a track that is, was full of indie shows on the theatre side, professional shows on the dance side, because it was from Michael Grayeyes’ work that he was choreographing that he was dancing in.

And that crossover between dance and theatre, the artists who do ride that line or who create dance theatre or theatre dance, um, artists like Shannon Litsenberger, uh, their connections to people in theatre just ended up making their way back to me. And it’s, uh, I’ve been really lucky that I have, I’ve had a, uh, 13, 14 plus year career in professional theatre as a sound designer and as an actor because of word of mouth. And, uh, I, I say that I’m lucky because I know sound designers who have like kicked doors down and asked to be apprentices for sound designers and are now complete and just like on that hustle to, to just get their name out there and to get their work out there.

And they have amazing careers now. And I often like will ask if I can’t do a job, I’m definitely passing it on to them. Artists like DNH Choi and Maddie Bautista.

And, and for me, um, the fact that I had, didn’t have to do that is something that I’m grateful for every day. And so any opportunity that I get to expand upon that, I just look at it as, um, uh, a yes until further notice. And, and, and so that, and it’s all connected because theatre community is so small that like the sound, the people who hire me for sound designers, they’ll see me like fooling around during like tech week and just like acting as a character.

And they’d be like, you should audition for this thing. And they don’t know that I’m already an actor. Uh, and so I’ll get a role there and then I might say something to a tech or to the design team there and they go, well, Mickey knows a lot about sound.

That’s kind of weird. Um, and then I’ll get hired onto another show. And eventually it’s just, I keep getting hired by the same people because I just get along with them so well.

Um, which led to eventually being cast in banana boys. And then I got to work with, with Nina, uh, Leah Kino for the very first time. It was someone that I always looked up to through university that led to, um, her telling me to sign up or apply for the, uh, um, apprentice artistic director position at, at factory theatre.

And that’s how I met him at you and Neha. So it’s, it’s just been this, uh, it literally just started because of, uh, it’s Colin mockery. It’s Colin mockery.

I thank you for my career in theatre, um, because of what you did on whose line is it anyway. Um, Neha, I’ll go to you next. Um, because I, I want to hear about your journey towards, uh, theatre and what made you want to be a performer first off, but also since you did study film in Mumbai, um, tell me about, about what, what eventually made you want to put that towards theatre.

Thanks to Bollywood again, like most kids in Mumbai grew up wanting to be a Bollywood star. And I was one of them for sure. And, uh, that’s what led me to, you know, wanting to be an actor performer.

So, uh, theatre was not, uh, my first, uh, not something I went to first. So I, it was always like being on screen film. So that’s how I, uh, decided to do an acting course for which I went to the, uh, went to film school, uh, called the film and television Institute of India.

It’s one of the biggest film Institutes in Asia. So I managed to like, uh, get a seat in the acting program and I studied acting there for two years while that was happening. Most of our acting training that happened at the film Institute was through theatre.

So our teachers were like big theatre personalities and, uh, the exercises that we did in class were mostly theatre exercises and voice, physical training, all that was based off theaters. So that’s where it started. And after the, after the course, I came back, uh, to, to Mumbai, the, the Institute was in Pune, which is another city.

So I came back to Mumbai and, um, I did, I did some television here and there, but mostly it was, I went back into theatre because that’s where, uh, I realized that I enjoyed being on stage more through, through the exercises or the stuff we did at the Institute. So I got, um, mostly I did children’s shows. So I did a lot of theatre then.

And that’s how being on stage was like something I really liked doing. And I’m like, okay, I’m going to do this. Now, one of the things that you’ve done that you also do is that you have a cooking channel.

So on, on YouTube. Um, so, uh, what, what, what made you want to do, to, to, to do a cooking show on YouTube? Um, but I, I am such a big foodie. It’s like, I dream about food.

Most of my thoughts throughout the day is about what am I going to eat next? And I love, I love, love cooking and, um, food is something that’s my, you know, that’s something that I have. It’s my best friend. It’s where I go for comfort and everything.

And that’s how I connect with my family, with my mom, with my grandma. So food, cooking, learning new recipes, um, traditional recipes, especially which are like, you know, now getting lost because of our, uh, you know, because of, uh, the connection that we’re losing with our grandparents and things like that. So I wanted to, uh, preserve that.

So I was like, okay, I’m going to start doing something. And that’s how it started. And I wanted to do a cooking channel and I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube where there are a lot of cooking videos and stuff, and I wanted to give it a try.

So that’s how I started it. And, and some, some of the skills that I learned at film school, like editing and stuff came in handy with that too. So I, yeah.

So like, let’s try something new. Nice. Nice.

That’s great. Um, do you, do you do that from your own kitchen? It was from my own kitchen. Actually the ones that the videos that, uh, we’ve got are there up now, right now, they were from our own department, but since we moved, we haven’t done much of that yet, but yeah, we’d, we’d film that, we’d record it and then we’d eat that same dish.

Yeah. That was food for the day. Nice.

Nice. Uh, Himanshu, I’m curious about your story because you, I mean, you’ve performed, uh, shows you’ve, you’ve had some shows that have been presented, uh, all over the world. Uh, like for example, Stories of a Dish, which I want to hear about.

Um, but first tell me about your, what drew you to, to theatre and, and, and, and also, you know, ultimately what brought you to Canada? Um, so theatre was not part of my family growing up at all. In fact, I never knew the concept of what theatre was till I, till probably when I was in my early twenties. Um, because theatre is, unfortunately is one of the dying parts in India.

Uh, there are lots of efforts to revive it and things have started getting better over the past 10 years or so. But when I was growing up, uh, theatre was not something that was looked upon as a profession because, uh, uh, there is no money and there is literally no government support. Uh, everybody does theatre just because they love it.

So everybody does film, they write for film, uh, and whatever little spare time they have, they do, they do theatre and produce theatre. Uh, so my family never went to the theatre. I didn’t know about it.

Uh, so it just happened while one day in college, we were setting up for like a teacher’s day function kind of, uh, event was happening. Uh, there was a small musical performance, which, which incorporated theatre and Bollywood dance together. Uh, and just at the last minute, uh, one of the actors fell sick, uh, and there was nobody to replace.

And, uh, the director came up to me, guys, I really need somebody, I need somebody to go on stage just to fill this one spot. And like, it will be part of the, uh, ensemble kind of thing. You don’t have to do much.

So I was like, you know, okay, I’ll step on. It’s no harm. It’ll just, the show will go on.

And just as I was about to go on, he went like, oh, by the way, you have to, uh, lip sync this one song for 30 seconds. And I was like, what? Uh, and I got pushed onto stage. Uh, and I did whatever I did.

Uh, I don’t remember it because it was such a blur. I did it. I came off stage and I was like, oh, that is such a rush.

And I want to do this. Uh, so from there, I started looking into doing more, uh, into performance. Uh, I then joined the dramatic society in college and things just went, uh, from there.

Um, uh, just, I, again, I think like Nikki, I was just very fortunate at the time. Uh, there was a youth theatre festival that was about, that was just about taking shape, uh, because a lot of theatre audiences were old in India. This one festival decided that we needed to, uh, get new and younger people into the theatre.

So this was a festival for anyone under the age of 25, uh, where they can present a play. And if they’re good enough, they’ll actually get to perform at the Prithvi Theatre, which is the biggest theatre in Mumbai. Um, so I kept going there.

I kept auditioning for this, for this festival and I didn’t get through till the eighth year. Uh, but in that interim, uh, I met so many mentors, uh, and the main person who was producing the festival, uh, named Kwasar, uh, just took me under his wing and just made sure he guided me through the entire process. And things went from there pretty much, um, yeah, again, then it was, it’s pretty similar to what Nikki went through where I got it.

I got a shot in one play. Somebody saw me there and just like, Oh, okay. Uh, would you like to act in our show? Like for sure.

Uh, and the nature of Indian theatre is such an, if you want to be employed full time, you have to do so many things. Uh, uh, so I had to learn how to stage manager, learn how to run sound. I had to learn how to focus lights, um, be a light walker.

Uh, in fact, there was a show that I did where I was stage manager, uh, and set up a show till 4, 8, 4 PM, did box office till five 30, uh, and then went into costume to go on stage at 6 PM. Uh, and then reconciled the box office at the end of the show. And, but that’s how Indian theatre is because there’s still, there is, uh, it’s, it’s not professional in the way Canada is.

It’s kind of like a DIY kind of theatre, but it’s at the same time, it’s so exciting because anything can happen anytime. Uh, yeah. And that’s how I, it just kept going.

Uh, and I was fortunate enough to work with so many, uh, eminent theatre personalities in Mumbai. Uh, but at the same time, uh, my family was trying to immigrate to, uh, Canada, uh, because they thought because, uh, like he’ll study, he’ll be, he’ll again, South Asian parents will be like, after college, we’ll take him to Canada and he’ll study and become a chartered accountant and all of that. Um, but of course, uh, as the nature, as we’ve already spoken of, uh, the process took almost 10 years.

Uh, by that time I was almost 30. Uh, so chartered accountancy was not happening. Uh, but we still got the opportunity to come to Canada.

So we said, we’ll explore this option and see what happens. Um, and when we came, things got in the way, uh, I kept going back to Mumbai and actually I did meet Neha on a children’s show that she was doing, where I was running sound for, got married, got her to Canada, uh, three and a half years later. So I didn’t get into doing theatre in Canada for the first eight years while I was here.

So it was around the time of, uh, the foundry, uh, when I got into factory and that’s where I met Nikki and everyone. So yeah, that was 2017. If I remember, Nikki, was that 2016? Yeah, it was 2017.

2017. Yeah. So from 2010 to 2017, I was doing the new immigrant to Canada, doing the odd jobs to pay rent.

Uh, till I got a grant from Toronto arts council where I could just take some time off work and just focus on getting myself into theatre. The way that you describe, uh, the DIY, um, nature of, of theatre in Mumbai. Um, it reminds me, I mean, it’s a little more codified here, uh, the Indy scene, but having to do all of those things will certainly stretch you and make sure that, you know, all of the aspects of like so many aspects of, of what, how a theatre is run in the end.

Although that’s a lot of things to try to contend with in a single night, it must have given you a real sense of, of how to run a theatre and how to make theatre. Yeah, because, um, uh, it was doing theatre in Mumbai is kind of a boot camp kind of situation where you’re for, I mean, even if you don’t want to, you’re going to learn pretty much every aspect of it. Uh, then that’s how I learned.

Like, like I said, like not even talking about the stage managing part, I didn’t even mention like doing before that I was, I was actually a producer on the show as well. Uh, and in the morning I’m, I’m so wait, let me, uh, clear that up. Uh, so if in Mumbai, you don’t get a run of shows, so you get, because they’re almost 500 theatre companies.

And it’s just the one theatre that supports you. And they’re only 365 days in a year. So the way in Mumbai theatre works is this theatre will only give you like two or three days.

Uh, and possibly that’s the only time you can run your shows, you run your show for the entire year. Uh, so you’re going to do event between, because you have that many shows. Uh, so you’re pretty much going to be producer, uh, production manager, stage manager, costume, makeup, box office actor, if need be, uh, all on the same show.

So yes, you will learn pretty much everything theatre related, uh, just by working in there. And I worked there for almost eight years. So I really knew, uh, in and out of how to do everything in the theatre in those eight years.

I can imagine. I can imagine. Um, this play that was a short story, um, to turn a short story into a play is a process.

Obviously you can’t just, it doesn’t translate one-to-one. So the process of turning the short story into a play, can you talk about, about how that works? Like, did what, how much, for example, how much did you have to lose and how much did you get to keep? Like, how do you convert or how did you convert this short story into a play? I think it was thanks to Nina because, um, both of us didn’t have any experience in playwriting as such. Um, and that was a short story that I wrote.

So I’m actually, when I wrote it as a short story, I’m like, Oh my God, this, there’s so much more I want to still, you know, write, still say. So, you know, in my head it was always a Bollywood film, but when we went into Foundry and when, uh, when Nina saw the short story and her guidance, I don’t think it would have been possible to turn this short story into a play without her guidance. Yes.

Yeah. Because we entered it thinking as it’s a one person show, uh, because it’s, uh, Neha telling her story, uh, through the process. And as we were going through it, we were just, while writing it, it was just like, you know, it should, you know, it’s like, it should be your story together because it’s not just a one person.

It involves two of us and both of us are going through this process. Um, it is heightened. It is, and it is Bollywood melodrama infused for sure, but it’s pretty much exactly what we went through.

Uh, so we pretty much got to keep, uh, I think everything like what we went through, the people we met, uh, the forms that we had to fill. So we pretty much were able to keep everything because I mean, it was, as Nina said, it was, it was so honest and we’re not, when we’re not faking any of this, this is exactly what we’re going through. And it’s, it’s life.

It’s love. It’s drama is life is basically what was happening at that time. You want to think about it? I don’t even, I can’t even pin down a scene that was cut.

Like there’s nothing that comes to mind as like a, Oh, it’s too bad. We don’t have that scene anymore. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I think the only thing is really, I think it was a linear show. So the only thing we did was just like, uh, play with timelines a bit, uh, which was exciting to do, but yeah, we, what we wrote is pretty much, it stayed from the start till the end.

And as Mickey said, because we were going through the process while we were writing the show, anytime we came, it was a new thing. And we just, uh, we’re able to incorporate all of it. Yeah.

It was like, guess what happened today? Guess what letter we got today. So it was just, you know, added as it happened. Yeah.

We got this phone call today and Nina was like, all right, take 20 minutes. Uh, write me a scene. Okay.

No pressure. So tell me about, about where we can see this play. Yes.

Um, so after two pandemic years, it was supposed to, it was supposed to happen in 2020. We are playing as part of why not theater’s riser project 2022 at the theatre centre. Uh, it is happening from April 1st to the 10th.

Uh, and it is produced by, uh, the theatre company that Neha and me started, uh, called not donkey bazaar. Nice. Nice.

So this play was going to go up in, it was, it was going to be the spring of 2020 that it was initially scheduled for. It was scheduled April, 2020. We were actually in rehearsals.

We were 10 days from opening. Uh, I mean, we were a week into, we’d, we’d completed a full week. Oh, the anniversary of us stopping rehearsal.

Our last rehearsal was yesterday. It was two years. And you know, it was, it was interesting.

Cause like as a first time director, I’m like, oh my God, we, is it normal to be able to block a play in a week? Um, and so we were really excited to see what happened the weeks after. Um, and then, uh, and then the lockdowns, uh, started right then and there. So, yeah.

And there’s been attempts to bring it back, uh, through riser. They, they have very, um, graciously sort of taken care of us each time riser had the potential to come back. Um, and, uh, but, uh, I mentioned now we’re really adamant on finishing what we had started because we had offers of doing it live stream, doing like a digital or recording it and putting it online, which I’m a huge advocate for, but I also want to respect their wishes.

And so, uh, agreed to sort of stay on board until we, we finished what we started and put it, um, an actual stage show for, for people to see live together. That decision to, to, to live stream or do it digitally is, is definitely a tough one. Um, especially when you were, especially when you were so close to like performing it the first time.

Um, I, I mean, myself, I’m a huge advocate for both. Like, I don’t think that one needs to replace the other, but I definitely see like something like this. Uh, it sounds like it, it lives on the stage and that it would have might’ve lost something on a small screen.

I think so. I would agree with that. And yeah, like ironically enough, the, the, the play that has Bollywood elements just wouldn’t work for what Bollywood would usually do, which is the screen.

Um, it’s mainly because it’s in the incubator and it’s mainly because I chose to do thrust style. Um, but you’re right, uh, Phil, that, that it, it just wouldn’t translate to camera in my mind. And then at that point it becomes that, that sort of that line or that, that crossover, that hazy area where it’s like, is this, does this have that same feeling of intimacy and liveness? That’s something that like a live stream would have.

And, and even, and for this to be live streamed, it would just, it would be too much. It’s a film, like a whole film and TV crew at that point to make something like this happen for a live stream. I think the way that I would want to honour the writing that Neha and Himanshu have done.

So I think you’re right. I think, and I think that’s why I agree with Himanshu and Neha’s feelings that it had to be done live. It had to be done.

It had to, we just had to finish what we started because, um, it just didn’t make sense to, if, if we were, if we were all willing to be patient anyway, it just didn’t make sense to rush it into another format just to quote unquote, get it over with because that’s not what we wanted. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The, I mean, there is that fine line between, you know, live streaming and which is a, you know, if you’re going to live stream from the theatre, that’s a diminished experience for anybody who’s watching.

Right. I think it can be complimentary to like a live stream from a theatre while the show’s going on can be a great accessibility, uh, booster. There’s so many things that it can add, but it is a diminished experience.

And so if you, if you can’t have people in the audience experience, experiencing it in person, then you all are, all you are presenting is a diminished experience. And then if you go and you, you’re going to do like a, like a digitally recorded and, and make that available later, then, then you’re into filmmaking, which is not theatre. So there’s this, this, this fine line of, of, of what you can do with the technology.

Totally. And I, and I think that part of what draws that line is whether or not the play was written to be live streamed, or if it was adapted from something that was meant for the stage. And I think that it’s one of it.

I think it makes a world of difference. Um, with the examples being like acts of faith was written to be live streamed year of the rat was written to be live streamed. And, and two things that I broadcast designed with factory.

And, and as someone who live streams as a hobby on Twitch, that is something that became apparent to me during those processes was like, Oh, because this was made to be live streamed. It doesn’t feel like that diminished experience. Cause I agree with you feel that like the, the just putting cameras in this, on the stage, um, and then just doing that and saying that that’s, that’s your stream.

It’s um, it just, it just doesn’t have that same, uh, intimacy. It just doesn’t, it just, it doesn’t feel live. Even if it was live, it wouldn’t feel live.

No. And live stream, I don’t think can ever feel it will net. Like I, like I said, it’s a diminished experience, but then also if you can’t have an audience in this space, like I was just talking, I just released an episode with Bruce Dow the day we’re recording this.

And he was involved with the production, Diana, the musical, which was filmed for Netflix, but it was filmed for Netflix with no audience because at the time they filmed that they couldn’t have an audience. And the difference between watching that with no audience and watching, uh, the Disney version, the Disney recorded version of Hamilton, which has an audience is night and day because things that, that would end in, in like you, you know, you finish your big number and there was should be applause, but when there’s nothing, then it’s, it feels empty. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. It makes it very odd to, to edit around if you edit at all.

Yeah. Um, I’m curious, uh, just as we, as we sort of like start to draw to a close, um, you guys were working on this during the pandemic, you stuck to, to waiting for the opportunity to present it live. Um, I’m sure that there were opportunities that came up because this whole thing has taught us about the impermanence of, of the theatrical experience right now, how, how heartbreaking it can be, how we have to switch on a dime and change things at the last minute.

Um, what have you learned from this experience from 2020 until now? Um, I, I, I think during the entire pandemic, uh, I did watch a lot of theatre shows. I did create a lot of virtual shows, uh, for Mumbai and for Canada, but I think at the end of the day, uh, I always feel that anything theatre related has to happen in person. I mean, there are, I agree with everything that you’ve said, uh, like, uh, doing it virtually makes it more accessible for sure.

Like Stories of a Dish, for example, I was able to present it in Edinburgh, do a live version of it in Mumbai while sitting at my home, which was awesome. Uh, but as a performer inside and the performer inside me will always say, I just missed that live audience and just looking, uh, that audience member in the eye and like telling him my story. Uh, I, I felt the need for that.

Uh, so that’s why with this particular show, we just wanted to hold on just to get that feeling and just to tell this story, uh, to the person in front of you, to make them feel it. Uh, and that’s why we kept holding on. Uh, also we kind of believe third time’s the charm with this show, no matter what, whether it was going through the paperwork, uh, whether it was going through just to have the first draft reading of it, we had to go three times.

So we were like, wait, we’ve, we’ve been, we’ve been stalled twice. Let’s just see what happens the third time, uh, which is now. So fingers crossed that third time is the charm is pretty much the theme for this play.

And hopefully this is how it’ll go and actually get to do it. And like Mickey said, when, um, when we wrote this, it was written for stage. And when you like, when we learned about digital theatre now in this time, uh, I’ve seen shows that were written to be on stage, but were streamed or, um, recorded, and that didn’t feel the same, but I also saw shows that were written for a digital performance and the writing, I think, or, uh, I think that makes a lot of difference.

That’s something we learned, especially with Stories of a Dish, the way we wrote, the way Himanshu wrote it and the way we, uh, saw it in our heads was for a digital show. So I think that’s why it worked. Yeah.

I think, I think you have to create for the medium that you want to present in, uh, and Impermanent was always written to be, uh, in person. So we kept sticking to that. Um, and hopefully, and hopefully that’s actually how it works and yeah.

Nice. And hopefully the waiting pays off. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It sounds like, it sounds like it will, it sounds like it will.

We’re in a place right now where theatre is happening, which is always, which is a great place to be right now. So that’s great. Um, just as, uh, I have one last question, um, for Mickey, just before we close off, um, this is sort of like one of those frivolous questions.

Um, I know you’re currently on a Lego kick. Yes. So what is your, I Lego is so meditative to do.

So what is your current work in progress Lego wise? Uh, they, I mean, I kind of have a choice cause I finished a couple of, um, Christmas gift Legos that I had got, which were two. Uh, I think one was like a, they’re cars. One’s a Ferrari, one’s a Nissan GTR.

But what I got for my birthday in October, I still haven’t cracked open is, um, a huge Ghostbusters Ecto one. Like it’s the car, the Ghostbusters car. No.

And, uh, and it’s, it’s sitting on my kitchen table and I, and, and I don’t know what I’m saving it for. I have no idea. Maybe, maybe it’s for the opening or the closing of this show.

I don’t know, but it’s been sitting on that table since October and I walk by it every day and I’m like, nah, today’s not the day. And then I’ll just move on and sort of, uh, go through the rest of the day. Um, but yeah, that’s, that’s one.

And then I, I like when I say a kick, I just like have a lineup. So there’s Ghostbusters car is the number one. Second is, um, uh, uh, NASA space shuttle discovery.

Um, there’s an R2D2, like a big one. And the, the latest one is a Mandalorian, the Mandalorian helmet. Dang.

Yeah. Wow. I don’t, I have a problem, Phil.

No, it’s not. Listen, you, okay. The problem is they’re expensive, but, um, as far as like, like they’re fun to do.

So, uh, I, years ago, years ago I was, I was gifted a Lego set. It was my first Lego set in like, I don’t know, since I was a kid. And as I was putting it together, I was like, why did I ever stop? Yeah.

I think that was part of it too, is just like asking it. And what’s funny is that, um, uh, like my, my, my parents always asked me what I want for my birthday. I never know.

And this was the one year I was like, who cares? Lego. Here’s, here’s a Lego, a bunch of Lego sets. It doesn’t matter which one choose.

My mom texts me and she’s like, I’m on a Lego kick too, um, out of nowhere. Right. Um, and so, uh, I guess it’s genetic.

I’m just taking after my mom apparently, but. And, uh, Himanshu, you’re working at like day, one of the things that you do is you’re working, uh, at factory theatre and the patron services. So, um, how long have you been doing that? And what, what, what draws you towards that aspect that supportive aspect of in, in the theatre world? Um, again, I think it all stems from, uh, what I learned in India.

Uh, I just love being part of the theatre and I, it really didn’t matter what position I was. I just wanted to be involved in as many productions as possible. Also because it was monetary, like more plays I was a part of, I would make money and could make a living from doing theatre in India.

So, and I guess that passion just drove. So it really didn’t matter what I was doing as long as I was involved with, with the theatre. Um, so I’ve been part of, uh, factory theatre as the patron services manager since November of 2018.

Uh, while we were in the second year of development of the show at, um, at factory. So it kind of worked well, like I would work in the day and just join the workshops in the afternoon. And at the same time I could just answer calls during breaks.

Uh, so that was fun. Uh, but yeah, and I think because I was so done working on jobs, I was working at a call centre at the time. Uh, so kind of translated, uh, into patron services, but I, I felt it was important that I, if I’m doing anything, I should be in the theatre rather than working odd jobs at a call centre or doing something else.

Uh, so when this opportunity came, I just jumped at it. Um, uh, and it was, yeah, it’s been, it’s been a fun ride so far. Perfect.

Himanshu, uh, uh, Neha, Mickey, thank you so much for, for joining me this evening. Thanks so much for, for, for taking some time out of your day and, and I look forward, uh, uh, to, uh, Impermanent Resident. Thank you so much for having me.