By Meghna Anand Year 10
This week, the LGB Express asked me to write an article about the upcoming musical Ahimsa. It is a show about being an immigrant, about dance, and about a family that attempts to explain the complicated relationship between Bollywood (an Indian film industry) and Kashmir. As the stage manager, I have been very involved in the rehearsal process, and I’ve gotten to watch the performers learn and progress. It has certainly been interesting so far!
None of the songs are in English, and the cast has devoted a lot of energy towards learning the pronunciations of the words, however difficult they can be at times. The time frame isn’t exactly easy to work with, either. There’s been a lot of work we’ve needed to get done since September to have a show ready in two months, and the intense rehearsal schedule can be exhausting. Most of us are hopeful, though, that all our hard work will finally be worth it (and the recent arrival of some beautiful costumes certainly helped increase morale)!
So far, I’ve talked about “the cast”, but one of the coolest things about working on this project is that the Secondary School cast at LGB doesn’t actually make up the entire cast. Some of the dancers are a year six group, some are from Nations, some are from year nine or ten dance classes. Some of the singers are teachers and parents! All in all, it’s a huge project, with several different sets of people working on it, from the dance classes, to the actors, to the set painters in Mr. Seck’s classes.
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this project!
