Filed under: Uncategorized
Considering the number of inquiries we have received by thosw who have (somehow) missed our earlier (and we might we add) very prominent posts…. we have decided to be kind and add ANOTHER post on the availability of tickets.
Available at :
the KPMG Head office (Near Zanziba)
Food City – Thimbirigasyaya, Staple Street and Nawala.
Now dont say you never saw…..!!!!!
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thats seven days… 168 hours… er.. some big amount of minutes and a bigger amount of seconds…before Checkpoint hits the boards! Rehearsals are in full swing, the cast is on the verge of hysteria induced by insomnia and tickets are going like hot cakes! (who came up with that phrase anyway huh?) But the point of this post is… to… tell you to QUICKLY buy your tickets! And the cast wants you to know that they have been working very very hard and would love the general public to show their appreciation of this… BLOG by offering gifts of chocolates (Maltesers please) or cash to the blogger. Please put the gifts in envelopes addressed to the blogger… and drop them in the box clearly marked “Blogger”… Shower gel will also be much appreciated… (well… it MIGHT work…)
Go go…. buy! buy!
Filed under: The plays
… is the title of the play that Stages Theatre Group will be performing in place of the 24 Hour Store that was performed in 2001 at the British Council and subsequently taken to India. The entire cast felt that the undertones and mode of the 24 Hour Store was inappropriate given the prevailing situation and atmosphere in the country.
The motive of ‘24 hours’ is simple: to capture the events of 24 hrs in current
Sri Lanka. Researched, written, workshopped and acted by the entire cast, ’24 hours’ is a window into the happenings in Sri Lanka from 7am 14th of August to 7am 15th of August 2006.
‘24 hours’ is a collection of reported events in
Sri Lanka from the 14th to the 15th of August 2006. Stages collected the information, and will share it with the audience, through theatre. Not a single word has been inserted into the information collected, and what will be performed is what has already been reported to the public in newspapers, radio and the internet.
Filed under: The plays
Our tickets are out as of today (17th AUgust) and we’re giving you a head start by telling you about it here FIRST! If you haven’t looked at our sidebar… tickets are available at Cargills Food city outlets at Staple Street, Kollupitiya, Nawala and Thimbirigasyaya and at the KPMG head office….
Tickets are priced at Rs 250/- 500/- and 1000/-.
So what are you waiting for??? Go on then… get ‘em!
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Go on take a look… we dare you! Its our newest page and by far the scariest….
no no… they all look very pretty! Please tell them that… PLEASE!
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Now that you have read the cast profiles (and if you haven’t you most certainly should…) go on and give them something to think about! Check out our forum theatre page – get involved in the making of our play. Go on! HURRY! (Sidebar – pages – forum theatre - over cast profiles – which you should ideally read first…)
And we present to you (with drum roll and trumpet fanfare) …. THARA KUMARASINGHE! Writer of The 24 Hour Store! Here she tells us a little bit about the writing of her play…
I’ve always believed in the concept of Time Travel. Of course they argue that people in the future never confront us in the present, we all know the reason for that. Just think how many of us would be clamouring for the opportunity to get out of our current mess?
Is the play about time travel? No. It might be more about the ‘current mess’.
And, no, I don’t believe in time travel; but see how easily you believed? I think the play has to do with what you believe in.
Who were my guinea pigs? You were.
Why the department store? It’s true isn’t it? It’s where we buy everything – from the latest gismo to the brand new ideas. It’s where everything’s shiny and nice, and you feel like every tagline, every product was made…just for you. It’s all about you. Or do they just define who you want to be? Now, that’s a thought.
Why mannequins? They see everything. Yes, they really do. You looking in the mirror, you pretending not to look at that gorgeous human being down the isle, you burying something you don’t want to be caught dead with at the bottom of your cart, your elation when you find that product that’s just right for…you.
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Check out our NEW PAGE! (its on the side bar – scroll down a little and you will see it… Under PAGES – click “Meet the Cast”) Get more information about our highly talented, yet extremely worried cast who havent seen their profiles yet!!!
Feel free to leave your comments – they all appreciate the attention.
Filed under: about us
Acting in a play is undoubtedly a difficult, time consuming and ardous task… and thats just for the people who actually LIKE to act and are good at it. For one (such as myself) who could be best described as ‘acting impaired” – being cast in a play is nothing short of stressful… and thats just an euphamism! Below is the painful chronicle of my trip to India and attempts to act in Checkpoint.. subtitled ‘how I tested Ruwanthies love for me’.
It all started with one of those spontaenous bursts of affection by Ruwanthie – she was feeling benevolent I guess… having received not one but TWO invitations to bring over some of her plays to India – coupled with the fact that some of the regular “real” actors of checkpoint couldn’t make it for the trip… (oh some flimsy excuses – pregnancy, work, etc ….) Anyway bottom line… she suddenly asked me if I would like to come. See there was this non speaking part in The 24 Hour Store and since I have been generally considered a fair …oh what the hell.. why be modest?? Self esteem is not too high anyway – I’m a DAMN GOOD dancer … you cant go wrong with movement right???
Poor Ruwanthie – t’was her undoing… sigh….
Of course I couldnt make it for the whole trip, because I had to go to Thailand for a conference (and for those of you who cant help but wonder – it was a RELIGIOUS trip!!!) so I was scheduled to go for the second festival – the bahuroopi festival scheduled for Mysore… but I digress … the rehearsal procedure must be catalouged – what a mortifying process!
Rehearsals initially (in my opinion) went off quite well. But little did I know that Ruwa was just being nice… hoping against hope that once I had memorised the sequence of movements I would kinda ‘get’ the fact that I was supposed to be a mannequin (i.e.- stiff) as opposed to a string puppet (i.e. – not). But no …
to be fair however, she came at me very gradually – so my self respect was not shattered all in one go.
It started with a very basic “open your eyes” … WHAT??? I was closing them??? Thats how I always look! But then Amal very kindly informed me that I had always looked at the world through half closed eyes and I needed to make an effort…. to excercise those eyelids which had been doing only half their job all this while.
So after opening and staring with tears streaming down my eyes, I thought I had “got it” and everything was ok… BUT… I was next told to “look up”. Being somewhat vertically impaired one would think that this wouldnt be a problem, because being blessed with unusually tall friends, looking up while they are talking has become a very automatic reaction – my neck just responds. Yet something in me just closes up when conciously ‘acting’ – therefore neck was reverting to primal birth function. (lolling as though my head was too heavy for it to support) Yet I made a brave effort to look up – only to be told that I was not opening my eyes again.
Next it was the movement – “be stiff – plastic – you’re too relaxed”. I never mentioned it then Ruwa.. … but I was most certainly NOT! Because having being endowed with at least ’second tier’ intelligence, I was now beginning to realise that I was the hamartia (tragic flaw to all of you who didnt study greek tragedy) of the cast. To make matters worse Piyumi was playing my role for the WIPSA festival, which meant that I had to be compared to HER – a professional (well practically!) actress…! Ruwanthie to her credit was still being really diplomatic and I understand totally Ru that you must have been at your wits end, when you asked me to go over all the movements during rehearsal ALONE so that you could ‘fix me up’ as best as you could. It didnt really help though that Amal decided to watch and pass comments – I felt so small and all alone … “can we keep him?” (Lion King 1993)
The only thing that kept me going at this point was dogged determination and a hankering to be closer to Ryan who gave me superb spine massages… which by the way I miss very much. Also there was the fact that we were doing a little go-go dance which I knew was a chance to redeem myself and i most certainly was not the worst person there…. such are the petty pleasures of life…!
Anyway Thailand came and went (and with it the acquisition of many pairs of shoes) and soon it was time for Mysore… (shudder…) landed in Bangalore and from there embarked on the most torturous bus ride ever known to man in the history of bus travel. (and being a regular commuter during rush hour in Colombo I know what I’m talking about!) We went to Mysore via some of the most bumpy, dusty, pot holy untarred roads which even Amal’s i-pod could not redeem… anyway having got there, we were dropped off at the festival venue while Amal and Ruwanthie went to discuss ‘important things’ with the organisers. It didnt take long for us to get involved in a massive group dance because the beat they were dancing to was so similar to that of the baila. Some good looking guys were doing a complicated very cool looking hoppy skippy sort of dance which I privately vowed to learn … but until such time, Nimmi and I went and did the baila. We were the source of much amused attention – and it helped that Nimmi looks the way she does….
Rehearsals began again the next day and much to my horror I learned that these buggers had CHANGED things in the play for want of anything better to do, while gallivanting around India on the Wipsa festival. So in addition to having to remember to open my eyes, look up and BE PLASTIC… I also had to learn some new movements. ahhhh the horror… the turmoil… the looks of exasperation from everyone else except Gihan who was oblivious to the disaster that was taking place…
Ruhanie and Nimmi tried to take me in hand, Amal tried to take me in hand, Ryan… well Ryan didnt care… but still… what I’m trying to say was that after all this collective effort I was atleast looking a little less puppetish. (or so I fondly believe). Come show day I was really nervous. Didnt help that Nimmi would say ‘I hope we dont mess up” and TRY not to look at me. Anyway performance began and all was going as well as it could considering the handicap aka me… but wouldnt you know the irony??? Lights went off in the middle of the dance and we had to stay with our hands in the air for a good five minutes until Ruwanthie decided to rescue us and motioned for us to get off stage. This helped me to relax considerably because I realised that everything was just relative. But I dont know if that made me look more puppetish…. aahhhhh!
The next show was much tighter because I finally GOT an analogy – Ruhanie explained that she always imagined she had a metal rod stuck down her spine which constricted her movement. ‘aahhhh… why didnt someone just SAY???’ …. improved greatly but everyone was too nervous to notice… 
Second performance went off much better and we were all elated – mostly at the prospect of a real Sri Lankan meal thanks to Shehan one of Nimmi’s (and now all of ours) friends. In the meantime, I learned the mysore folk dance along with everyone else and we ended our stay there by doing an impromptu performance with all these ‘young hot Indian dudes yaar’ for a good half hour – aney Nimmi what was ‘my guys’ name? I really dont remember – Nimmi kept calling him “oyage ekkena” and that stuck. We then took the dance to Bangalore – the rooftop of a seedy pub in nagarbhavi, and the middle of National law School. (and Iromi I dont want to talk about the other occasion)
Anyway that was the sordid tale of my brush with acting…. which as you may have gathered is not happening this time around. We all learn from our mistakes… I have my doubts about ruwanthie though – who called and asked if I wanted to act this time as well… but then her love for me has always been blind.
But no … considering myself a true lover of the arts, I have decided not to inflict my half closed eyes, string puppet demeanour and lowered head upon Colombo’s thespians. Which is all the more reason why everyone should go and watch it… see guys??? Publicity!!!! (Anyway I had exams)
So there ends my saga – bad actors be warned! I would like to end with a quote from TLC:
“Dont go chasing waterfalls….
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to”
(TLC, 1995)
PS – Mysore folk dancing classes conducted ….reasonable fees…. contact me via this blog.
Filed under: about us
CHECKPOINT – Three Strangely Normal Plays will be performed by the Stages Theatre Group in the new state-of-the-art British School Auditorium, from the 1st to the 5th of September 2006. First produced in Sri Lanka in 2001 and subsequently toured in India in 2005, the play has received excellent reviews from audiences and critics alike. See our reviews section to read them!
CHECKPOINT comprises three short plays, namely “Last bus eke kathawa” – a one man show, “The 24 hour Store” – a one act play and “Forum Theatre” – a unique piece of theatre where the audience gets involved in creating the drama.
The plays are directed by award winning playwright Ruwanthie de Chickera who is the Artistic Director of Stages. (Some call her Pol pot – we’ll leave you to figure out the nuances)
The cast includes some of the best known names in English Theatre, such as Mohammed Adamaly, Tracy Holsinger, Nimmi Harasgama, Piyumi Samaraweera, Ryan Holsinger, Ruhanie Perera, Shanaka Amarasinghe, Gihan de Chickera and Dylan Perera.
The Production serves as a fundraiser for a tsunami housing scheme funded by the KPMG Trust and is sponsored by Mobitel.
The ‘Daily Mirror’ and ‘Sunday Times’ serve as the print media sponsors, while the electronic media sponsor is ‘TNL Radio Network.
For more information about the plays, check out the History of Checkpoint …. information on cast will be published soon – that one you DONT want to miss.
