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(from left) Mahira Kakkar, Caralyn Kozlowski, Geeta Citygirl Chopra and Gita Reddy in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
The cast of the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. (from left - Ariya Ghahramani, Amir Darvish, Gita Reddy, Kamal Marayati, Nasser Faris, Rachid Sabitri, Shalin Agarwal, Caralyn Kozlowski, Mahira Kakkar and Geeta Citygirl Chopra.) Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
The cast of the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. (from left - Gita Reddy, Geeta Citygirl Chopra, Mahira Kakkar, Caralyn Kozlowski, Kamal Marayati, Ariya Ghahramani. On floor - Rachid Sabitri.) Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
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(from left) Ariya Ghahramani, Shalin Agarwal, Kamal Marayati and Amir Darvish in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
Mahira Kakkar as Vina Patel and Rachid Sabitri as Atul Dutt in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
Geeta Citygirl Chopra as Lopa Dutt in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
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(from left) Rachid Sabitri as Atul Dutt and Kamal Marayati as Eeshwar Dutt in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
The cast of the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. (from left - Amir Darvish, Caralyn Kozlowski, Nasser Faris, Gita Reddy, Mahira Kakkar, Rachid Sabitri, Geeta Citygirl Chopra, Kamal Marayati, Ariya Ghahramani and Shalin Agarwal.) Photo by Henry DiRocco. |
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Publicity Photos |
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(l. to r.) Geeta Citygirl Chopra as Lopa Dutt, Rachid Sabitri as Atul Dutt and Mahira Kakkar as Vina Patel in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by J. Katarzyna Woronowicz. |
Rachid Sabitri as Atul Dutt and Mahira Kakkar as Vina Patel in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by J. Katarzyna Woronowicz. |
(l. to r.) Geeta Citygirl Chopra as Lopa Dutt, Mahira Kakkar as Vina Patel and Rachid Sabitri as Atul Dutt in the West Coast Premiere of Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., running March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo by J. Katarzyna Woronowicz. |
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Playwright Ayub Khan-Din. The West Coast Premiere of Khan-Din's award winning comedy, Rafta, Rafta... runs March 22 - April 24, 2011 at The Old Globe. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe. |
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Director Jonathan Silverstein. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe. |
Cast and Creative Team
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Shalin Agarwal (Etash Tailor) is thrilled to be making his Old Globe debut with this production of Rafta, Rafta.... He recently starred in two productions of Kristoffer Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize finalist play, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, at the Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis and InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia. His other New York and regional theater credits include There or Here (Hypothetical Theatre Company), subUrbia (PossEble Theatre Company), Breakroom (Manhattan Repertory Theatre), Antony and Cleopatra (Hudson Shakespeare Company), King Lear (Kitchen Dog Theater) and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Penobscot Theatre Company). Agarwal has appeared on television in “30 Rock,” “Cupid,” “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns” and in the films Homeland, A Dangerous Place and Bronx Paradise. Agarwal is a graduate of the B.F.A. Theatre program at Southern Methodist University and resides in Los Angeles.
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Geeta Citygirl Chopra (Lopa Dutt) is a proud native New Yorker and is overjoyed to be making her Old Globe debut. Hailed as the "South Asian theater's grand diva" by AsianWeek, her credits span a glitteringly dissimilar array of thematic elements and inspired energies. With a mission to connect all people and link all the arts in the spirit of progressive solidarity, Citygirl Chopra started SALAAM Theatre (the first professional South Asian theater/arts company in the USA). For over 10 years as Artistic Director of SALAAM, she has had the opportunity to express her personal and creative ideals. She is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the City College of New York. Her stage credits include Charles Mee’s Queens Boulevard (the Musical) (Signature Theatre Company), Serendib (The Ensemble Studio Theatre), The Wound (La MaMa E.T.C.), Democracy in Islam and Trail of Tears (Theater for the New City), Kalighat (Baruch Performing Arts Center) and Gallathea and Law Against Lovers (Aaron Davis Hall). Citygirl Chopra’s television credits include “The Good Wife,” “Rescue Me,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”
www.imdb.me/citygirl.
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Amir Darvish (Jivaj Bhatt) is the winner of the 2010 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role in Psych and a New York Midtown International Theatre Festival nominee for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play for The Higher Education of Khalid Amir. His previous New York theater credits include Taxi To Janna, Falling, Homeland, Shoes, Dinner with Ahmed, Mona’s Dream, subUrbia, 1001 and the critically acclaimed Off Broadway one-man show about Freddie Mercury titled Mercury: The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God. In addition to voice-over and commercial work, Darvish has appeared in numerous film and television productions including Month to Month, Charlie Wilson’s War, Confessions, The Pink Panther, “Running Wilde,” “The Colbert Report,” “Law & Order,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “Human Giant,” “Late Show with David Letterman,” “Spin City,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “The Unusuals,” “NYPD Blue" and most recently the new series “Bar Karma.” www.AmirDarvish.com.
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Nasser Faris (Laxman Patel) most recently played the role of Baba in the theatrical production of The Kite Runner at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Cleveland Play House, directed by Marc Masterson. He also portrayed Emad Al-Bayit in the world premiere of Michele Lowe’s play Inana, directed by Michael Pressman at the Ricketson Theatre in Denver, about the looting of Iraq’s national treasures from museums during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He costarred in the indie feature AmericanEast (Best Picture at the 2008 Madrid International Film Festival and First Time Film Festival in Los Angeles) with Tony Shalhoub and Sarah Shahi, a timely, poignant drama about Arab-Americans living in post-9/11 Los Angeles. His other credits include a recurring guest role on “24” and guest star roles on “The Cleaner,” “The Unit,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “The Shield,” “Sleeper Cell,” “JAG,” “NYPD Blue” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” He starred in the television movies Saving Jessica Lynch and Homeland Security. Faris’ feature film credits include David Mamet’s Spartan, Vadim Perelman’s House of Sand and Fog,Sam Mendes’ Jarhead and Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Twelve. His recent stage credits include the world premiere of Benedictus in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Akhmed in Moscow Arts Theatre’s The Shelter at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles (five Ovation Award nominations, including Ensemble Performance).
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Ariya Ghahramani (Jai Dutt) is proud and humbled to join the historic Old Globe for the first time in Rafta, Rafta.... He has recently completed work on a staged reading of Urge for Going at The Public Theater and The Kite Runner at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Cleveland Play House, as well as his first feature film, Ken Kushner's When the Devil Comes, and the Twentieth Century Fox television series “New Amsterdam.” Ghahramani’s most recent theater credits include the North American premiere of Camille, Seven Against Thebes, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Tempest, The Laramie Project, Once Upon a Mattress, Honk!, The Waltz of the Toreadors, The Shadow Box, Oklahoma!, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Wild Party. He is a graduate of Hofstra University (Bachelor of Fine Arts), The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts and London Drama School.
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Mahira Kakkar (Vina Patel) is happy to be making her Old Globe debut. Her Off Broadway and New York credits include All's Well That Ends Well (The Public Theater), Sophistry (The Beckett Theatre), Miss Witherspoon (Playwrights Horizons), The Cave Dwellers (The Pearl Theater), Opus (Primary Stages) and Betrothed (Ohio Theatre). She has appeared regionally in Three Sisters and Lady Windermere's Fan (CENTERSTAGE), Romeo and Juliet (Arden Theatre Company and Virginia Stage Company), Our Town and Coriolanus (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Seven (Skirball Cultural Center and international), Around the World (Florida Studio Theatre) and Inana (Denver Center Theatre Company). Her film and television credits include A Night in the Hill, “Blue Bloods” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Kakkar has trained at Juilliard, The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab, SITI Company and Guthrie Theater.
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Caralyn Kozlowski (Molly Bhatt) is thrilled to return to The Old Globe, having previously played Gretchen in Boeing-Boeing and Amanda in Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy, a role she created at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Her New York theater credits include I Hate Hamlet, Flygirls, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Secrets of a Soccer Mom, Fair Game, Murdering Marlowe, The Milliner and The Odyssey. In eight seasons with The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, her favorites have included Beatrice in The Servant of Two Masters, Amanda in Private Lives, Ilona in The Play’s the Thing, Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest, Desdemona in Othello, Olivia in Twelfth Night and Irina in Three Sisters. Kozlowski’s other credits include Rosalind in As You Like It (Connecticut Repertory Theatre) and Mac in Three Viewings and Evelyn in The Shape of Things (Barrington Stage Company). Her television and film credits include “Law & Order,” “Numb3rs,” “Six Degrees,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Guiding Light,” “All My Children,” “Third Watch” and Practical Magic. She holds a B.F.A. from Purchase College, SUNY.
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Kamal Marayati (Eeshwar Dutt) is making his Globe debut. His theater credits include Homebody/Kabul (Mark Taper Forum and Brooklyn Academy of Music), The Color of Justice (Second Stage Theatre), Amadeus and Much Ado About Nothing (Circle in the Square Theatre), SubUrbia (Triad Stage) and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (78th Street Theatre Lab). His Bay Area credits include The Taming of the Shrew, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merchant of Venice and Extremities. Marayati has appeared in the films After the Sunset, The Terminal, Over the Mountains and Power Hungry. His television credits include “Undercovers,” “Day Break” (recurring), “Desire” (recurring), “7th Heaven” (recurring), “Invasion,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Windfall,” Homeland Security, “Family Affair,” “Alias,” “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Marayati is a graduate of the Actors Studio Drama School and a member of The Actors Studio. |
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Gita Reddy (Lata Patel) is overjoyed to be back in San Diego and making her Old Globe debut. Her theater credits include When January Feels Like Summer (City Theatre and Sundance Institute Theatre Lab), The Moth and The Flame and Tamburlaine (Target Margin Theater), Staying Afloat (Ice Factory, directed by Lenora Champagne), Slavey (Clubbed Thumb, directed by Robert O’Hara), Ariel Dorfman's Widows (Reverie Theatre Company, directed by Hal Brooks), Rajiv Joseph's The Leopard and the Fox (AlterEgo Theatre Company), Betrothed (Ripe Time), Peter Gil-Sheridan's Topsy Turvy Mouse (Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor Project, directed by Daniella Topol), Han Ong's The Suitcase Trilogy (Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab workshop, directed by Ron Daniels), Queen of the Remote Control (Mixed Blood Theatre) and Air Raid (National Asian American Theatre Company). Reddy’s film and television credits include Eat Pray Love, “Law & Order,” “Possible Side Effects” (Tim Robbins’ pilot for Showtime), “Numb3rs,” “Where Are You Going, Elena?” (SXSW music video) and Prana with Danny Glover. Her solo-ish performance work includes Secret M.U.T.A.N.T. (published in Tokens: The NYC Asian American Experience on Stage, Temple University Press). Her theater directing credits include Turning Tables (Coffee Cup) and 7Eleven: Franchised (Desipina & Company). Her theater casting director credits include 13P, Culture Project, Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, New Georges and AlterEgo. Her training and fellowships include Shakespeare Lab (The Public Theater), Performance/Multi-Disciplinary Arts Fellowship (New York Foundation for the Arts), Artistic Fellowship (New York Theatre Workshop) and UCSD.
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Rachid Sabitri (Atul Dutt) is delighted to be joining The Old Globe after his recent U.S. theatrical debut, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife at La Mirada Theatre. His previous U.K. credits include the West End production of Romeo and Juliet and the National Tours of Rafta, Rafta… (directed by Nicholas Hytner), Bloodtide and Beyond Midnight. His regional credits include Twelfth Night (Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton), Beautiful Thing (York Theatre Royal) and Tangier Tattoo (Glyndebourne). Sabitri’s television credits include Generation Kill (HBO), “The Odds” (pilot, CBS), “Doctor Who,” “Casualty,” Wannabes and “Family Business” (BBC), The Walk and “Blue Murder” (Granada TV) and “The Bill” (Thames Television). He has also had an extensive voice-over career including the recent motion pictures The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Wild Swans and the radio soaps Silver Street and Together for the BBC. www.rachidsabitri.com.
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Ayub Khan-Din (Playwright) was born in 1961 and grew up in Salford, Manchester. After leaving school he worked briefly as a hairdresser before enrolling in drama school, where he wrote his first stage play, East is East (1997), for Tamasha, a theatre company in London. An autobiographical story of a mixed-race family growing up in an overcrowded terraced house in a white, working-class area of Salford in the early 1970s, it was first staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London and subsequently adapted (by himself) into a highly successful feature film. His second play, Last Dance at Dum Dum (1999), concerns the septuagenarian members of the dwindling Anglo-Indian community in Calcutta, still clinging tightly to their old imperial past. Notes on Falling Leaves (2004) was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, and Rafta, Rafta… (2007), a comic adaptation of Bill Naughton's 1960s story All in Good Time, won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2008. His new film, West is West (a follow-up to East is East), will open soon and the film version of Rafta, Rafta… will follow in June. He recently delivered his commissioned play, Fauzi, based on Marlow’s Doctor Faustus, to Lincoln Center Theater. Mr. Khan-Din’s latest play, All the Way Home, will premiere in Manchester, England, and he is currently working on a musical for the Royal National Theatre called Bunty Berman Presents…. Mr. Khan-Din also works as an actor and has appeared in many films including My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. |
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Jonathan Silverstein (Director) directed the acclaimed Off Broadway world premiere of The Temperamentals by Jon Marans, produced by Daryl Roth, Stacy Shane and Martian Entertainment (Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble). Other Off Broadway credits include revivals of A.R. Gurney's The Dining Room (Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Director, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble), Robert Anderson's classics Tea and Sympathy and I Never Sang for My Father and John Patrick's The Hasty Heart, all for Keen Company, where he serves as Resident Director. Other New York credits include Red Herring by Michael Albanese (New York International Fringe Festival, Outstanding Direction Award), Blueprint by Bixby Elliot (Summer Play Festival), Cocteau’s Indiscretions and A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble), The Rats Are Getting Bigger (New York International Fringe Festival and The Public Theater's New Work Now! festival), Greater Messapia (Queens Theatre in the Park) and The Train Play (Clubbed Thumb). Regional credits include The Fantasticks (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), Merton of the Movies and Marry Me a Little (Dorset Theatre Festival), The Triumph of Love (Cleveland Play House), Urinetown and tick, tick… BOOM! (Cape Rep Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing and Cymbeline (The Theatre at Monmouth) and Ionesco's The Chairs (Sledgehammer Theatre). Silverstein was featured as one of 2009’s Out 100, Out Magazine’s annual list of the most outstanding and inspiring men and women of the year. He is a graduate of the M.F.A. directing program at UC San Diego and an alumnus of The Drama League Directors Project. Member, SDC. www.jonnysilver.com. |
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Alexander Dodge (Scenic Design) has previously designed The Old Globe productions of The Last Romance, Sammy, The Pleasure of His Company, Bell, Book and Candle, The Sisters Rosensweig and Moonlight and Magnolias. His Broadway credits include Present Laughter (2010 Tony nomination), Old Acquaintance, Butley and Hedda Gabler. His Off Broadway credits include Trust and The Water’s Edge (Second Stage), The Understudy (Roundabout Theatre Company), Paris Commune and Measure for Pleasure (The Public Theater), Antony and Cleopatra (Theatre for a New Audience), Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (Lucille Lortel Award) and Chaucer in Rome (Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts) and Force Continuum and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Atlantic Theater Company). Dodge’s regional credits include work at Alley Theatre, Arena Stage, CENTERSTAGE, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, Gate Theatre in Dublin, Geffen Playhouse, Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Paper Mill Playhouse, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Stratford Festival of Canada, Triad Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Yale Repertory Theatre. His opera credits include Il Trittico (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Der Waffenschmied (Munich), The Flying Dutchman (Würzburg) and Lohengrin (Budapest). Dodge trained at the Yale School of Drama. |
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Christal Weatherly (Costume Design) has designed regionally for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, rainpan 43, California Shakespeare Theater, American Repertory Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theatre, The Old Globe, Long Wharf Theatre, The Studio Theatre, Arden Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, East West Players, The Children's Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Madison Repertory Theatre, Deaf West Theatre and American Southwest Theatre Company. Her New York credits include work at Signature Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Human Company, The Acting Company, Apparition Off-Broadway, LLC and Summer Play Festival. Weatherly has an M.F.A. from University of California, San Diego and a B.A. from New Mexico State University. www.christalweatherly.com. |
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Lap Chi Chu (Lighting Design) recently designed the Globe production of The Whipping Man. His New York City design credits include The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage Theatre, Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Primary Stages and Juilliard Opera. His regional designs include work at Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, Dallas Theater Center, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Portland Stage, Shakespeare & Company, Cleveland Play House, Evidence Room, Virginia Opera and Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Chu is the lighting designer for ChameckiLerner (Visible Content, Hidden Forms, I Mutantes Seras and Please Don’t Leave Me), performed in the United States and Brazil. He has received multiple Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards and a Drammy Award for Best Lighting. He holds degrees from Northwestern University and New York University. He teaches lighting design at California Institute of the Arts. |
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Paul Peterson (Sound Design) has designed over 90 productions at The Old Globe, including Plaid Tidings – A Special Holiday Edition of Forever Plaid, Welcome to Arroyo’s, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, The Last Romance, Boeing-Boeing, Alive and Well, Lost in Yonkers, I Do! I Do!, The Savannah Disputation, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Cornelia, The Price, Kingdom, Six Degrees of Separation, Since Africa, The Women, Sight Unseen, The Pleasure of His Company, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Bell, Book and Candle, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Two Trains Running, Hold Please, Restoration Comedy, Pig Farm, The Sisters Rosensweig, Trying, Moonlight and Magnolias, Vincent in Brixton, I Just Stopped By to See the Man, Lucky Duck, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Blue/Orange, Time Flies, Pentecost, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, The Boswell Sisters and Crumbs from the Table of Joy. His regional credits include designs for Milwaukee Repertory Theater, San Jose Repertory Theatre, CENTERSTAGE, La Jolla Playhouse, Sledgehammer Theatre (Associate Artist), Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, The Wilma Theater, L.A. Theatre Works, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, North Coast Repertory Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, Cape Fear Regional Theatre, Hope Summer Repertory Theatre, Malashock Dance, University of San Diego, San Diego State University and Freud Playhouse at UCLA. Peterson received his B.F.A. in Drama with an emphasis in Technical Design from San Diego State University. |
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Gillian Lane-Plescia (Dialect Coach) was born and brought up in England and trained in Theatre at The Royal Academy of Music. She received her M.A. in Theatre from Florida State University. Her dialect coaching credits include the Broadway productions of War Horse, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and The Philanthropist. Her Off Broadway credits include The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Kit Marlowe and The Misanthrope. Regionally she has coached for Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Players Theatre, Arena Stage, Alley Theatre, The Banff Centre, CENTERSTAGE, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company and Yale Repertory Theatre. Lane-Plescia’s opera credits include eight seasons as diction coach with Lyric Opera of Chicago. She has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School since 2000 and was formerly Director of Theatre Voice for the M.F.A. programs of the Universities of North Carolina and Michigan. She has published 20 self-teaching dialect CDs for actors. www.dialectresource.com. |
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Reetu Patel (Movement Consultant) was born and raised in Bombay, India—the birthplace of Indian cinema, or Bollywood as it's more popularly known. Growing up she was trained in various styles of Indian folk and traditional dance forms. She took training in the classical dancing style of Kathak at Legendary Gopi Krishna's Dance Academy, in different styles of Bollywood dance with the best living choreographer Bollywood has, Saroj Khan, and in Indian contemporary dance at Terence Lewis Dance Academy. As a result, she firmly believed that she wanted to become a choreographer. She turned her dream into reality when she moved to the U.S. way back in 2006 and began dance training classes for a few students initially. Over the past four years, through sheer determination and perseverance, she grew her academy from teaching Bollywood dance to a handful of students to now a huge number of students. Today she lives her dream and is a well-established choreographer in Orange County, California and is the founder of MAD Bollywood Dance Company Inc. and the Artistic Director and Principal Instructor for Bollywood Dance at MAD Studios. Currently she is working on the artistic direction and choreography for a 2011 production called Jashan. |
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Mark Danisovszky (Music Consultant) has had a long interest in Indian music and culture, sparked initially by seeing Ravi Shankar perform in George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh. Danisovszky studied with Aloke Dasgupta and attended Indian vocal seminars with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He began his theater career at San Diego Repertory Theatre where he performed as Mark Blitzstein and pianist for A Cradle Will Rock. His other credits at the Rep include The Dybbuk, Red Noses, Six Women with Brain Death, Long Story Short and The Threepenny Opera, for which He won the 2009 Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Musical Direction. His La Jolla Playhouse credits include solo pianist for James Lapine’s Luck , Pluck & Virtue, accordionist and Oronte in School for Wives and Mother Courage and her Children in co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Recently, Danisovszky was the musical director and accompanist for Stephen Sondheim’s Passion and Cy Coleman’s On the Twentieth Century at Cygnet Theatre Company. He also musical directed The Threepenny Opera with the M.F.A. acting program at UC San Diego. As accordionist, he has appeared with Atlanta Symphony, San Diego Symphony and Hilton Head Orchestra where he was the soloist for Alan Hovhaness’ “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” He also appeared onstage with San Diego Opera in Samuel Barber’s Vanessa and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Danisovszky was musical director for Rip Van Winkle and accompanist for the Artist in Residence program for San Diego Opera’s education department. |
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Diana Moser (Stage Manager) recently stage managed Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound and The Whipping Man at The Old Globe. Her additional credits at the Globe include Lost in Yonkers, I Do! I Do!, The Price, Opus, Six Degrees of Separation, The Pleasure of His Company, The Glass Menagerie, In This Corner, 2007 Summer Shakespeare Festival, Restoration Comedy, Christmas on Mars, A Body of Water, Lobby Hero, Fiction and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. Moser's regional credits include La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, New York Theatre Workshop, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Children's Theatre Company and Arizona Theatre Company. Moser received her M.F.A. in Directing from Purdue University. When not doing theater, she splits her time between Nova Scotia and the classic wooden sailboat Simba I. |
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Jess Slocum (Assistant Stage Manager) has previously worked on the Globe productions of Robin and the 7 Hoods, Alive and Well, Sammy, Cornelia, Since Africa, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (’07-‘09) and The Glass Menagerie. Her Broadway credits include In the Heights. Her regional credits include Ruined, The Third Story, Memphis and Most Wanted (La Jolla Playhouse), Post Office (Center Theater Group), Yellow Face (Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company) and Tranquility Woods (Steppenwolf Theatre Company). She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. |
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