An instant act

The cast, Jaiswal and Congress rehearsing on Zoom

Between October and December last year, Bombay Theatre Company (BTC) put together a theatre festival where they staged 10 plays of 10 minutes each on Instagram (IG). The event saw 20 actors from around the world participate in it. The concept proved to be a successful one and all the plays were saved on BTC's IG page. It was then that Sarah Congress, a New-York based writer, discovered them while browsing the hashtag #virtualtheatre. Having liked what she saw, Congress reached out to BTC founder Raveesh Jaiswal for a potential collaboration, which is finally materialising today.

Raveesh Jaiswal

BTC will stage their first international production titled The Covid-19 Do-Over Marriage live on IG. Written by Congress, the play revolves around Angela, a chef based in NYC, who wants to have a baby. Her husband Ben, an actor, isn't in agreement. Their tiff is soon halted by the emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic, the after-effects of which we'll get to know by tuning into the play. Since Jaiswal wanted to leverage the virtual space to the fullest, he put forth the idea of casting American actors. Three were shortlisted for the play: Luke Hofmaier, Aleigha Spinks and Jeffrey James Keyes.

Rehearsals began in January, with Jaiswal taking over the direction. "It's been an amazing learning experience for me because directing actors from the US is a different ball game due to cultural differences. I had a structured schedule in place," he shares. For a week or two, the group only did readings on Zoom, before discussing the characters in-depth. Then, Jaiswal worked on blocking (a theatrical term that refers to movement and positioning of actors on stage). "People are curious to know how blocking works virtually, but there is a lot of scope for it. I asked actors to show me around their house, because they will be logging in from their respective homes," he explains.

Sarah Congress

The blocking process itself took a week. After that, the biggest challenge was prepping actors for IG - an unusual platform for theatre in the age of Zoom and pre-recordings. Jaiswal admits it's a tricky platform and the cast was given three weeks to adapt to it. "They were asked to make alternative accounts where they could go live. I was thrilled from the response I got from them - one of the actors commented how the medium gave him the same butterflies he'd have while stepping onto the stage," he recalls. IG, Jaiswal states, excels in bringing the ‘live' element to virtual theatre. So, log in tonight if you wish to witness that.

On: Today, 10.30 pm
Log on to: @bombay_theatre_company on Instagram