Imperial Talent, Class of ‘10

Do you all want to start by telling us a bit about what your plays are like?

Gilead: Let’s see, mine is a musical revue in the traditional sense of a revue, lots of catchy tunes with different words put to them, largely based on all the anecdotes I’ve picked up over my three years here. It sends up all the trends and attitudes and habits that you know and love around you, and it’s all sung by a wonderful cast and accompanied by a fantastic fourteen piece band.

Shamini: There are lots of very well-known songs in yours actually, people will definitely know the songs

Gilead: Yes, you’ll walk out whistling them and hating me for choosing them.

Shamini: But really funny new lyrics...

Gilead: Am I paying you for this endorsement? I feel like I should be!

Shamini: Mine’s a shakespearean, pantomime, melodramatic, murder mystery, horror, non-musical. It has lots of blood and horrible deaths, but it also has knitting… It’s irreverent and a lot of fun, there are fewer Imperial references, to be honest mine’s got a lot more geeky references. A lot of science fiction and fantasy pop culture references, which is still something I think appeals to a lot of students - I hope it’s not just me! It’s really good fun and very funny. You get quite immersed in what’s happening, it’s not the kind of play where the actors stand about on stage quoting things, you really feel like you’re actually there.

Pranav: And mine’s rather different, it looks at the creation of the first atomic bomb, but looking at it from the side of the scientists involved, especially focussing on Einstein, Oppenheimer and Szilard; exploring their motivations and consequently how they felt when they heard of the use of the bomb. So it’s quite a dark play, it’s very dramatic… It sheds a new light on the scientists if you’ve never thought about what that felt like before.

Shamini: Yeah, we tend to lose sight of the fact that science occurs in a social context, that scientists are real humans. Also in this particular case that science can actually have such a huge impact on the world and on people’s lives.

What made you want to start writing to begin with?

Shamini: It was definitely over a year ago when I started writing down some of the ideas with a plan to write something. I suppose when you’re around drama a lot, and involved in lots of artistic things, you get these bits of inspiration and you think, “wouldn’t it be great if I could kind of cram all these things together and create something to direct myself.”

Gilead: The reason I wanted to do it, and the big challenge for me, is that I’m not musically talented in any way but I have a tremendous amount of admiration for people who are. So I wanted to try and immerse myself in that sort of environment with people who know music and knew what they’re talking about, and not to be so scared of it.

Shamini: But before you started this project you’d been rewriting the lyrics of songs hadn’t you? You knew all about it…

Gilead: Yes, that’s true; sad and alone in my room... Shamini’s kind enough to conjure up the image of a misspent youth rewriting lyrics to songs, which is actually largely true to life. I knew I wanted to do this and about a year ago it occurred to me to actually see if this could fly. So I started writing a couple of songs, and then over the course of the year, I built a plot around it and suddenly it’s all become real.

Pranav: My inspiration actually all came from having a discussion with a friend about people who’ve changed the world in whatever way, and the regulars came up; Mahatma Gandhi, Hitler, Martin Luther King, and then my friend mentioned Albert Einstein. Obviously, I agreed about the importance of E = mc2 but he said he’d actually been referring to the atomic bomb. I’ve always had ideas about writing in my head, and they’ve always come in and gone out again, but this idea sort of stuck, so I thought I’d better do something about it. This is the first thing I’ve tried to write, but I just tried writing it down and kept going and going and it really seemed to come together.

Shamini: Mine was eventually kick-started when I’d written the first act and it had taken me ages because I really wanted it to work. But having written it, I suddenly realised that the dramatic society were having their meeting in which they invite you to come and propose a play that week. I realised that I only had a first act so I sat down for a day and scribbled out a really rather brief and very bad second act…

Gilead: Oh no, it wasn’t bad...

Shamini: I’ve rewritten it since; it’s good now! But obviously the first draft was about five seconds of “and then the play ends and everything gets tied up and that’s the end”. I proposed it and they said “yeah, sounds ok…” and then I sat down and really improved it over the summer.

Pranav: I don’t think you ever have the finished article though, it only took me a couple of months to finish the first draft but since then it’s been redrafted and redrafted and fine-tuned, and even today, two days before the production, we’re still making changes.

Shamini: Yeah, my cast is getting really annoyed with that!

Gilead: I tried very hard to separate the hats, to be a writer and then a director; I realised that I couldn’t judge myself, I had to imagine that this is the script I’d been handed by someone else, and isn’t he an idiot for rhyming answers with finances? But let’s work with it and make it work, it hasn’t been easy, the first few rehearsals I had real difficulty.

Pranav: Directing’s been a lot of fun. I think I was expecting the hard times, the organising, having to rehearse every day, but I’ve got such a great team with me and I think you need that, as a director. Your production team, your lighting, your sound, your costumes and of course your cast, but it’s fun for everybody just to see this idea and words on a page just come to life. It’s really good.

Shamini: The most difficult thing is that when you’ve written it you have a really distinct view about how it should go, and I’m a bit of a control freak anyway. But the most rewarding thing is when I’ve written this page, and the actors just sort of get it; they know what it means. We did a scene for the first time, and I almost wasn’t sure if we’d rehearsed it already because that was exactly how it was in my head, and it’s the most amazing thing because they’ve literally brought the characters to life and I didn’t even have to tell them.

Pranav: I actually think that’s the most enjoyable part, when you sit there and someone has interpreted what you’ve written in a completely different way, but better.

Shamini: That’s always really good, you just think “Oh my god! yes! Why didn’t I think of that?” It’s about other people bringing their creativity, and it’s all of you working towards it together, that’s so nice.

Gilead: I found the most stressful thing was having a personal stake in the writing, I don’t know if it’s the same for you but I’m a hugely sensitive person to criticism. Not because I disregard it, but because I consider any criticism to be absolutely justified, and it sends me cowering into a corner thinking, “Why am I in this room with such knowledgable people?!”

Pranav: That for me is the most exciting thing, that my name is written on this and any criticism is going to come back to me, but I’m just laying myself out there and saying, this is what I can do, what do you reckon?

For me the hardest thing was casting because I had to turn down so many great actors who I couldn’t cast. That’s the hardest thing so far, I’ve still got three days… I hope people will come because it’s important with all three productions to remember that these are Imperial students acting, they’ve got their studies and everything else going on but they’ve also worked extremely hard to put on these shows; rehearsing day-in day-out and learning lines in their spare time. It’s important for them to see their colleagues, their peers and their friends, anybody, coming and supporting them because it’s pointless just performing to an empty room.

Gilead: Hear hear.

Will you be continuing to write?

Pranav: Absolutely, I’ve got all sorts of ideas bumping about that I’d like to get down.

Gilead: Well, I’m graduating this year, so I’ve had a lot of fun out of this, mainly because I may not be able to do it again. Revues tend to be the stuff of boarding schools, prisons and military outfits rather than just general workplace humour. So I’ve enjoyed this while I can, I’ve loved working with talented people and there’s nothing more rewarding than being taken seriously by people you set out to collaborate with.

The Destroyer of Worlds by Pranav Mahajan for ICSM Drama is on today and tomorrow.

The Dark Side by Shamini Bundell runs from 8th - 11th December.

Imperial Collage for Musical Theatre Society by Gilead Amit runs 12th - 13th December

If you'd like to direct a play next term for Dramsoc, play proposals are on the 3rd December. Email acting@dramsoc.org for more details. Auditions will also take place for several shows in the last week of term.