THE THING ABOUT THE DREAM
Photography by Alessandra Esquivel
Written by Mantra Radhakrishnan • Produced by Aidan Klinges and Vertigo Productions
Armaan Bhansali
Anoushka Dasgupta
Vikram Jallepalli
Arham Khalid
Jhil Patel
Sahaana Rajesh
Reva Sangal
CAST
REHEARSAL ROOM
Wylde Laden – Stage Manager
Sophia Mitton-Fry – Stage Manager
Sajel Peters – Choreographer
Katia Shek – Assistant Director
Maggie McKenna – Dramaturg
Aashna Rai – Dramaturg, Dialect Coach
Rafael Barocas – Lighting Design
Lou Stockmeyer – Sound Design
Sachi Parikh – Set Design
Jojo Holm – Costume Design
Haleema Khan – Costume Assistant
DESIGNERS
Alessandra Esquivel – Marketing, Photography
Anushka Agarwala – Marketing, Outreach
Ryan Lien – Marketing
Hunter Tran – Graphic Design
Nicole Streger – Fundraising Director
PRODUCTION TEAM
Recently I had the epiphany that things never, EVER turn out the way you envision them to be.
By that I mean, when you fantasize about that moment where the very news you’ve been working for your whole life pops out like it threw you a surprise party – the act of thinking it jinxes its coming true. Playing your future life out in mental movies every night before you fall asleep is one way to make sure your life will not go that way.
I made sure to relate this frustrating yet groundbreaking revelation – supported by the overwhelming evidence that was my subjective perception of my own life – to all of my friends. After all, I’d cracked the way the universe works, and I thought they’d want to know. Then I found myself directing a play about that exact thing, and saw that many of us are familiar with dreams gone awry, and few of us know how to cope with them.
I started thinking about the way I watch iMovie home videos like episodes of a comfort TV show, and how hard it is to hear my voice in my past only to feel like I’ve lost touch with so much of it now. And I thought, too, about how we tease our loved ones to amuse, keep secrets to protect, and speak in love languages that seem to explode what we aspired to preserve. How do we maintain relationships with our loved ones, our chosen families, and ourselves when we can’t be or do exactly who we envision for each other? How do we find the guts to dance even when we don’t know how to fill the silence when the song ends?
I see the answer in Mantra’s laugh- and sigh-inducing words, our production team’s thoughtful work on how and where to bring colour (with a U) into Shanley, back-of-the-room giggles with the stage managers, and our cast’s willingness to dance and cry-laugh over spilled (invisible) milk. They’ve brought enough joy to this process to outweigh how much I’ll miss it when it’s over. We found that joy today, so who’s to say we won’t find it somewhere else tomorrow?