Stages Theatre Group

Have you ever watched a production, looked at the actors and thought – “I wonder what they’re really like?” Well we have. And on the off chance that there are some like minded people out there – we have decided to do them a service and add some information about the cast. Not only what they have acted in etc…. but also the stuff they didnt really want you to know!

…ok ok so we admit it – we did it just because we can, because none of them have the password to this blog and because we enjoy the power trip…. but mostly because we can now be bribed not to publish particularly salacious information – which however can and will be dispensed on receipt of better offers!

Cast Profiles

Ruwanthie

The Acclaimed Thespian

Ruwanthie is an award winning Playwright and Director responsible for highly acclaimed theatre work both in Sri Lanka and abroad. ‘Middle of Silence’ – written when she was just 19, is to date her most successful play having won the International British Council New Playwright award for South Asia in 1997 as well as the 2000 Gratiean Prize for English Literature in Sri Lanka. As Artistic Director of Stages, she has directed all its productions, save for ‘The Last Elephant’ (2001), which was written and directed by Michael de Soyza. She collaborated with four other theatre directors from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal to complete a South Asian collaborative play ‘Babur – Memoirs of a Legend’ (2004) produced by the Japan Foundation. The play was performed in Tokyo, Kyoto and Delhi.

The Truth

Ruwanthie loves feigning democratic airs when directing a play. She moots ideas, encourages diverse opinions and strongly advocates consensus building in arriving at inclusive decisions with shared responsibility. She then goes ahead and does exactly what she always bloody intended to do. Some think that this is due to her pragmatic side, which understands that tough decisions have to be taken for progress to be made. Others, who bore the brunt of her tyranny from childhood days, put it down to a psychotically megalomaniacal streak. Either way, we feel for her kid.

Amal

The posh version

Amal is a founder member of the Stages Theatre Group. Some of the plays he has acted in include “A Poet, a Puppet and Papadam” (2004), “The Mirror Making Factory” (2003), “Filling the Blanks” (performed at the Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival, Manchester 2002), “Checkpoint” (2001 & 2005) and “Ubu Rex” (2001). He was the co-writer of “The Mirror Making Factory” and “Filling the Blanks” and the producer of “A Poet, a Puppet and Papadam.”Amal is a Law Graduate from the University of Colombo.

The pot version!

Currently obsessed with “getting back” his features, Amal spends most of his time mooning over pictures from way back when he was “plastic, smoothiful and beaut”. Threatened with expulsion from the production by Pol Pot unless he lost weight, he has embarked on a rigorous fitness programme involving amongst other things, finger dips (and crackers). The only cast member that knows the password to the blog, (Hello… I’m the producer) Amal is in for a rude surprise when he tries to next log on. Haaaaa ha ha haaa ha ha ha! (Behold the revenge of the downtrodden bloggers!)

Piyumi

What she wants you to know

Piyumi is a graduate in International Relations from Mt. Holyoke College, USA. She now manages a Women’s Empowerment programme at MAS Holdings. She has also just completed her first feature length Sinhala film titled “Aksharaya”, Directed by Asoka Handagama. Past stage performances include lead roles in: A Merry Regiment of Women – (2002), 3 Star K (2003), Fefu and Her friends - (2005) and CHECKPOINT three strangely normal plays (2005).

What she doesn’t

Piyumi has one great secret to her success – cough medicine! We are not able to speculate on whether or not this has produced any side effects, well actually… She is among the multitudes that have been “saved” through Hindi film songs – the story of how Piyumi was able to evade arrest in India by wooing the policemen around her with a touching rendition of some love song or the other is true chicken soup for the soul.

Gihan

The official truth

Gihan is a journalist and cartoonist at the Daily Mirror newspaper in Sri Lanka and has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colombo. A Founder member of the Stages Theatre Group, Gihan won Best supporting actor at the National Youth Drama Competition in 2001. He has performed with groups in Japan, India and England and his one-man show ‘Last Bus eke Kathawa’ has been performed in Delhi (2001), Manchester, (2002), and Tokyo, (2004). He recently acted in the Sinhala short film ‘Degoda thala’ directed by Damayanthi Fonseka. He has also acted in several stage plays in Sri Lanka since 1998 and has experience conducting Drama workshops.

The ugly truth:

The proud owner of a Be My Valentine shirt, Gihan has just awoken to the wonders of mobile phone telephony. After having finally caved into peer pressure and procuring himself a phone, he now spends his time constructing and sending “raunchy” text messages to hapless females. Unfortunately for him… his new found phone enthusiasm is losing its battle against his well established mastery of the art of sleep. The end result – a handful of confused people out there, trying to read meaning into “ hey babe, I’m feeling cold. Wanna cum war…”

Shanaka

What he wants you to know

Shanaka started his acting career with a role in Playing Doctor produced by Vinod Senadheera in 1996. He was an active member of the St. Thomas’ College Mt. Lavinia “Dram Soc” taking leading roles in The Play (1997) in the college production of Comedy of Errors which won first place at
the Inter school Shakespeare Drama Competition in 1998. After leaving school he continued his acting career in Virgo Intacta (1999) Last Elephant (2001), Ubu Rex (2001), Checkpoint (2001), Poet Puppet Pappadam (2004). When he is not acting, Shanaka is an associate at Julius and Creasy. He has a bachelor of law degree from the university of London and also a masters in Law from King’s College London.

What he doesn’t

Inspite of Shanaka’s professed eloquence and verbose manner, he has a dirty little secret… he never got that A for English in the A-levels. This has caused much anxiety and although he tries to act nonchalant and cool about it, the bitterness of the memory has rendered him a darker person. And thats why he is always cast as the villain!

Tracy

As she puts it

Tracy is a graduate in Drama and Theatre from Goldsmiths’ College and Trinity College, UK. She teaches Speech and Drama for the Wendy Whatmore Academy, and is Artistic Director of the ‘Mind Adventures’ fringe theatre company. Previous stage appearances in Colombo include lead roles in ‘Widows’ by Ariel Dorfmann (1998), ‘Middle Of Silence’ by Ruwanthie de Chickera (1999), ‘Slag’ by David Hare (1999), ‘Ubu Rex’ by Alfred Jarry (2001), ‘Checkpoint: Three Strangely Normal Plays’ (2001), ‘The Ritual’ by Jehan Aloysius (2002 & 2004).

As we see it

Tracy is the most influential person in our cast. Just ask her two kids… Tracy’s son Kavan has inherited his mothers’ reactionary traits. She labelled him narcoleptic after observing his first two sleep filled days in the world, and the kid hasn’t slept since!
Tracy’s daughter Neha, has been quick to emulate her mothers subtle assertiveness. Just watch her say ‘anei malli’ as she slaps her little brother silly. Poor Deshan… no wonder he’s so obsessed with square photographs.

Nimmi

On her CV

Nimmi started her acting career as a member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain at the age of 14 and progressed to study Drama and Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths College of the University of London. She has acted in a number of films since 1997 and won best actress at the Las Palmas Film festival in 2004 for her role as “Chamari” in “August Sun”. She now runs a publishing company, which successfully publishes three English magazines. Nimmi is currently working and studying under John Martin from the Pan Centre for Intercultural Arts on psycho-social theatre to work with children affected by the tsunami.

Stark Reality

They say a picture speaks a 1000 words…

Ryan

What we had to beat out of him

Ryan currently works as a senior creative executive at Masters advertising Ltd. A long serving member of the Stages theatre group, Ryan has acted in a number of productions including Ubu Rex (2001), Filling the Blanks (2002), 3 Star K (2003), Mirror Making Factory (2003) and Looking through my earphones (2005). He is also a member of the Workshop Players and was in the cast of Cats (1992) and Royal Hunt of the Sun (1997)

What we had to beat him to stop showing us

Ryan is in loooove!!! And it’s sickening!!! Not only does he turn up for rehearsals late, he turns up late with hickies! Not only does he miss rehearsals on his birthday because a series of “special events” have been planned out for him, he also misses rehearsals on the following day, because the “special events” just go on and on. The rest of us ‘single’ minded people retch when he turns up in Swiss football jerseys, simply because ‘she gave it to me machang’. Who even knew that the Swiss played football? Bleeeargh!

Adam

Adam is a practicing Civil Lawyer, having graduated with honours from the University of Colombo and the Sri Lanka Law College. He also holds a Post-graduate Diploma in Marketing of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK), and has been a lecturer in Marketing for 15 years, whilst also serving as a visiting lecturer of law.Hailing from a family of theatre enthusiasts, Adam took to the stage early in life, and completes 30 years in the theatre next year. He has acted in about 40 productions, ranging from children’s favourites to farcical comedy to intense drama to subtle wit to ‘larger than life’ theatre. Adam, together with his sister Nafeesa, formed a theatre company in 1994 under the banner – the Performing Arts Company, which has had eight box-office hit productions to date.

Madam Im Adam

Adam is indeed a true master of ‘larger than life’ theatre. He has mastered the art of the dramatic stage exit like no other. The feather in his cap, fondly named ‘the green streak’ will go down in the annals of theatre history as one of those moments that just froze in time. For those who missed it… your fault for blinking. He has also mastered that most difficult and rarely seen skill of the elocuted tiger roar. Just imagine a balding Tony Blair crossed with Scar (of Lion King fame) with well articulated and modulated politically sensitive graauwls… and you not even beginning to get the picture.

Niran

The humanist

A third year law undergrad at the University of Colombo, Niran has developed a strong affinity towards human rights law. His previous acting experience includes roles in Nothing Really Matters (2000) and Oedipus (2001) directed by Vinod Senadhira, and in A Poet, A puppet and papadam (2003) directed by Ruwanthie de Chickera. In addition to this, he is on the university debating and rugby teams.

The mysoginist

A third year law undergrad at the University of Colombo, Niran has developed a strong affinity towards being a misogynist. I quote “I respect girls only if they’re friends of my friends machang” In spite of this however, Niran is extremely loyal (especially when drunk) and is willing to lay down his life to defend (male) friends being threatened by snubbed spoilt brats and their politician cousins. Never mind that that he started the argument by proclaiming his blatantly chauvinistic views a tad too loudly in the presence of feminists –in-training…

Ruhanie

What she wants you to know

Currently working at the Sunday Times, Ruhanie is an English honours graduate who also has a pretty impressive track record in theatre. She was a member of the winning cast of the Shakespeare Drama Competition in 1996. She began her acting career outside of school with Indu Dharmasena, starring in a number of his plays, including It’s All or Nothing (2002) and A Real Change (1999). Past performances include Fefu and Friends directed by Tracy Holsingher (2005), The Ritual directed by Jehan Aloysious and performed in Colombo and Jaffna in 2003 and 2004 and A Poet, A Puppet and Papadam, written and directed by Ruwanthie de Chickera in 2003.

What she really really wants you to know

Ruhanie has come early for every single rehearsal to-date. She has also printed out and photocopied 24 hr Store scripts for the entire cast and written a press release two days before it was due. Most impressively, she went through three consecutive vadei filled rehearsals without even a hint of complaint that there was no chicken in them. To those of you who haven’t borne the brunt of her chicken withdrawal symptoms, you will not appreciate the massive significance of this development. Let me tell you…Encountering a Ruhanie frothing from the mouth and hallucinating that your head has transmogrified into a succulent roast chicken is not a pleasant experience.

Jake

The professional

Jake Oorloff started acting at the age of five at S. Thomas’ College. He won a number of acting awards including best supporting actor at the Royal Interact Drama Competition (1997) and best actor at the Shakespeare Drama Competition (1998).He won best supporting actor at the Inter-International Schools drama competition in (1999) while at Althea International School. In 2003, he was the creative director of the Abu Dhabi Dramatic Society where he directed numerous plays. Jake favours working in non-traditional theatre settings and works with groups of non-actors from children with developmental disorders to commercial sex workers and youth of sexual diverse communities. Jake presently works as the coordinator of Theatre Education Unit of the TrikonE Arts Centre where he also Co-facilitates Applied theatre workshops.

The natural

Jake is the newest addition to the 24 hr store cast. He’s proven that he’s a natural and is making quick ground in learning the moves. In fact, he has scarily taken ‘natural’ to a new level of ‘naturality’ in the sexy red light scene, causing Nimmi’s inner thigh much anxiety in the process. Well, those of us who have known him for long, always knew he was a natural… just one look at him strutting along stage in 4 inch heels was more than sufficient to establish that!

Dylan

What he wants you to know

Nothing… he refused to send in his profile.

What we want you to know

Dylan holds the dubious record of being the most fired actor ever to grace the Sri Lankan stage. This is mainly due to his rather pragmatic approach to theatre – that rehearsals are an inconsequential and unnecessary process. He is a wonderful actor nonetheless, and he believes that this is why he keeps getting called back to act. The truth could not be further away though; yes he is a wonderful actor; but the reason he keeps getting called back is because we have to put up with him to spend more time with his amazing kids. And Dylan, you’re not helping your cause by not bringing them for rehearsals…

Izhara

Izhara started acting in Girls’ High School Kandy and was a member of the cast that won the Inter-school Shakespeare Drama Competition (1991) and was adjudged best actress. As a member of the Kandy British Council Drama Club, she acted in Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ (1992) and co-directed Agatha Christie’s ‘Witness for the Prosecution’(1994). An English graduate from the University of Peradeniya, she was a member of the DramSoc, where she co-wrote and acted in plays. Izhara holds a Performer’s Certificate in singing from The Trinity International Examination Board and is currently a freelance writer.

The truth

The truth is that after Izhara buried heads with much delight we’re too scared to say anything about her….