In an adorable note written on what looks like the pages of a school notebook, Yolani Balfour send answers for our email interview. Balfour is one of the three artists—Donna Craig and Myla Williams are the other two—playing the role of Matilda in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Matilda The Musical, in association with GWB Entertainment.

Based on Roald Dahl’s famous novel, the story of an extraordinary little girl in an unforgettable theatrical experience is all set to come to NMACC in Mumbai this week. Balfour admires Matilda’s courage to stand up against what’s wrong. On stage, she focuses on thinking about what Matilda’s emotions would be at that moment. Her challenge was to not smile at the audience, “then I realised that I don’t have to look directly at them—I can just look somewhere close to their face.”