b y Satinder Kaur Chohan

Cast A Thin Red Line - 2007 Kali seeks out strong individual b y Satinder Kaur Chohan Suraj Amarjit Bassan Asian women writers who challenge Lal Ravin J Ganatra our perceptions through original Baba Bhasker Patel and thought provoking theatre. Chandni Goldy Notay The company has established a Dhani Gurpreet Singh Deadeye - 2006 reputation for presenting work Director Janet Steel Designer Emma Wee that takes audiences on Lighting Jenny Cane unpredictable journeys that Composer Sayan Kent Assistant Director Natalie Ibu entertain, excite and inspire. Company Stage Manager Alex Weller Deputy Stage Manager Mandeep Kaur Aujla Since its inception in 1990, Kali’s connections Paper Thin - 2006 within the Asian community have made it a General Manager Christopher Corner natural home for women who are seeking new Dramaturgy Penny Gold and Janet Steel ways to express and explore the issues and Press Representation Suman Bhuchar Marketing Dan Pursey @ Mobius human interest stories of the Diaspora. Graphic Design Luke Wakeman Kali aims to present the distinct perspective Photography Robert Day and experience of Asian women to people Set built by David Mitchell from all backgrounds and to celebrate that Women’s costumes made by Sarah Floyd Bells - 2005 richness and diversity. First performance: 23 April 2008 at Contact Theatre, Manchester No idea is too small, no statement too large. Kali would like to thank Jon McGrath, Amanda Roberts and We actively encourage our writers and audience everyone at Manchester Contact Theatre for all their help to reinvent and reshape the theatrical agenda. and support with mounting Zameen. Through our new writer development Thanks to Richard Lee at The Jerwood Space, Martin Witts programmes, we provide core resources for and all the Arts Theatre, Philip Cheng and all those whose help Chaos - 2005 writers new to the theatre through workshops, came too late to be mentioned here. dramaturgical support and public readings. Special thanks to Paulette Randell and all Special thanks also to Beesh Zytynski those involved in presenting the initial and Mark Sumner of Bete Limited, readings, the workshop production and the East Sussex for donation of Artistic Director Janet Steel Decibel presentation of Zameen. the fertilizer sprayer General Manager Christopher Corner Subsidised rehearsal facilities provided by the Media Partner Board of Trustees: Shelley King (Chair), Elizabeth Cuffy, Penny Gold, Shobu Kapoor, Shyama Calcutta Kosher - 2003 Perera, Shiroma Silva, Jocelyn Watson Kali was founded by Rukhsana Ahmad and Rita Wolf. The development of Zameen was supported by Kali is funded by Arts Council England Kali Theatre Co. 18 Rupert Street London W1D 6DE 020 7494 9100 [email protected] www.kalitheatre.co.uk

Special thanks to Mr Sunny and Mrs H Sikri of Little India, Ltd Co. No. 2583595 Registered Charity No. 1071733

Southall for the loan of the Charka (cotton spinning wheel). Photos (left): Robert Day, Bob Workman Programme Photos: Satinder Kaur Chohan Sock ‘em With Honey - 2002 Leaflet photos: Emma Wee and Satinder Kaur Chohan Mandeep Kaur Aujla DSM Janet Steel Director Fertilisers, Pesticides Company Biographies A British Asian, Mandeep graduated from Central Since 2003 Janet has been Artistic Director of Kali. and Suicides School of Speech and Drama, with a BA Hons in She began her career as an actress; theatre work Theatre Practice and Stage Management. Prior includes: Cinders, A Colder Climate (Royal Court During the 1960s and 1970s, an American-influenced Green Satinder Kaur Chohan Writer Dead? (BBC Radio 4/World Service). studies include Theatre Studies, Drama and Fine Theatre), Blood Wedding (Half Moon), Romeo and The Chauhan tribe is said to originate from a Ravin recently launched his production company, Arts at Liverpool University and Surrey School of Juliet (Sherman Theatre & Albany Empire), Oedipus Revolution in Punjab replaced traditional farming techniques with mythological fire atop Mount Abu in India. www.gurujiproductions.com Performing and Dance, derived from an artistic Rex (Tara Arts). TV includes: An English Christmas, and graphical background from the age of 13. The Bride, Gems, The Refuge, Shalom Salaam. Janet Somehow, my branch made it down the Goldy Notay Chandni intensive modern practices. High yield seeds, chemical fertilisers, mountainside, via the Land of the Five Rivers and Recent credits: Tales From The Brothers Grimm, As began directing in 1988 as assistant to Tessa A graduate of the George Brown Drama School in lush green fields of Punjab, all the way to Southall, A Mother Of A Brown Boy, Taikonaut!, The Schneideman at Loose Change Theatre, producing Toronto, Canada. Theatre: Saheeda in Rani pesticides and machinery dramatically increased productivity and West London, where I was the first member of my Deranged Marriage, The Libertines, Miscellaneous UK premiers at BAC by Spanish authors, where she Moorthy’s Handful of Henna (Sheffield Crucible immediate family born in Britain. After studying Festival, Stars in the Morning Sky. Through her directed her first full-length piece,White Biting Theatre 2006/2008), Mindy in There’s Something transformed India from a food-deficit nation into a self-sufficient English Language and Literature at King’s College recent study of theatre practice, Mandeep Dog. Directing includes: Behzti (The Birmingham About Simmy (Rifco Arts/Theatre Royal Stratford London and post-graduate studies at Yale University embraces an immense interest and exploration in Rep); April in Paris, Bretevski Street, A Hard Rain, Top one. Punjab became the ‘Breadbasket of India’. East), Chandni in Zameen (Kali at Soho Theatre in the US, I edited the British Asian style and culture ethnic theatre and performances; targeting Girls (Northampton Royal Theatre), Exodus Studio), Lata in The Deranged Marriage (Rifco Arts magazine 2nd Generation. I have worked extensively realistic yet challenging issues we face in life. She (Millennium Mysteries at Coventry Belgrade), 2004/2005), Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet in journalism, publishing, broadcasting, is currently pioneering a form of renewal and Brecht’s Antigone, The Mother, Orpheus However, over the next two decades, the revolution turned sour. (Bermuda Arts Festival), The Moaner in The Vagina documentary research and new media, often around admission in this field of work and is promoting a Descending, An Ideal Husband, Romeo & Juliet, The Monologues (Bermuda Arts Festival), The Wife in Overproduction exhausted the soil, excessive use of fertilisers South Asian issues and am currently developing a greater existence through teaching and creating Knockey, Serious Money (Rose Bruford College). For Blood Wedding (Toronto Fringe), Asha in East is not collection of short stories around Punjabi Desi more fellowship and productions. Kali: Sock ‘em with Honey by Bapsi Sidhwa, just East (Leicester Haymarket), and Anna in Lovin’ It rendered crops more vulnerable to pests, while drought and culture. In 2006, I was selected as a writer for the Calcutta Kosher by Shelley Silas, Chaos and Paper (Yorkshire Women Theatre). Film and TV: Nina in Jenny Cane Lighting Designer Emerging Writers’ Residency at Edinburgh’s Traverse Thin by Azma Dar, Deadeye by Amber Lone and A deforestation disrupted Punjab’s fragile eco-systems. Holby City (BBC), Priya in Mira Nair’s My Own Jenny was born in Sri Lanka and has designed Theatre, where I began developing my second play Thin Red Line by Sonali Bhattacharyya. Country (US Feature Film), Mrs. Roper in A lighting for productions throughout the world. Her The Beauty Room. In 2007, with support from Arts Heartbeat (Disney series regular), Diane in Noddy lighting for music theatre productions, including Emma Wee Designer Council England, I went to Sangrur and Bathinda in In the 1990s, First World nations via the WTO and IMF drove India (BBC) and Yasmine in Death Threat (Toronto Film Sondheim musicals in Leicester and London, has Originally trained as a sculptor Emma works as a southern Punjab to research and develop Zameen. Festival Award Winner). Goldy recently appeared as been seen around Britain. West End productions designer and director in theatre, opera and site towards rapid trade liberalisation. India flung open its doors to My first trip to Punjab’s cotton fields coincided with a Bollywood Dancer in a Gordon Haskell Music include several for Lloyd Webber and Cameron specific collaborations. Pastdesign work includes; the beginning of the sowing season; the second trip Video and has presented on TV for ATN. Mackintosh as well as spoken theatre. Her theatre Die Lustige Witwe, (Vlaamse Opera - Ghent), multinational corporations and agrochemical companies rushed in time for the harvest. productions range from Shakespeare to Thérèse Raquin (Opera-te, Linbury Theatre ROH, Bhasker Patel Baba in to monopolise seed, chemical and fertiliser markets in Punjab. Amarjit Bassan Suraj pantomime; from Sheridan to Alan Bennett in Covent Garden), Swan Breaks (Robert Hylton Urban Theatre: Royal Hunt of the Sun, Playing with Fire, A Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and theatres from Edinburgh to Plymouth as well as Classicism), Fresh (RHUC/Channel 4), How to Beat a Map of the World, Wicked Yaar, Tartuffe & The Magic Drama. Theatre includes There’s Something About abroad. Opera lighting includes work for Scottish Giant (Unicorn Theatre) Iron, (Contact Theatre – Seeking to extract higher yields and profits from the depleted Carpet, No Zealot Like a Convert, Hebron, (National Simmy (Rifco Arts national tour), Aladdin (Greenwich Opera, the English National Opera and in Antwerp. Winner of 2005 MEN award for Best Studio Theatre), Timon of Athens (Young Vic), Blood, The Theatre), Strictly Dandia (Tamasha Theatre Co), Dance lighting includes productions for Adzido. Production), In God We Trust; (Peshkar Productions), Punjabi soil, large agribusinesses encouraged the introduction of Great Celestial Cow (Royal Court/Joint Stock Twelfth Night (West End). TV: Messiah IV, The Best Something Dark (Contact Theatre), A Streetcar Theatre), A Comedy Of Errors (Bolton Octagon), Sayan Kent Composer Man, Featherboy, My Hero, Is Harry On The Boat, The Named Desire (National Theatre Studio), First World biotechnology and genetic engineering to create a so Hijra (Plymouth Theatre Royal/The Bush), A Passage Composing includes Two (Liverpool Royal Court), Bill, Black Books, Breakwater Reef, Fist Of Fun, Borderliners (Albany Theatre), Duet For Four (Fin To India (Farnham Redgrave), Macbeth (Half Moon/ Spangleguts (London Bubble), Paper Thin, Sock’em called ‘Gene Revolution’. Punjab has become a testing ground for Kerching. He has recently finished filming for Walker Dance), People Show 105, Damned & Divine NY International Festival), Little Clay Cart, Vigilantes with Honey, Calcutta Kosher (Kali Theatre), Chaos, Casualty. Radio includes My Omellete (BBC), one of (English National Opera Studio). Current (Arts), Whale (Sheffield Crucible).Film: Bells, (Birmingham Rep), Hound of the Baskervilles GM crops whose use is still being debated in much of the First five plays commissioned to mark the 60th productions include The Love For Three Oranges Thunderbirds, “8” Person to Person, Kidulthood, (Paul Farrah Prods), Phantom Sausage (Ipswich anniversary of partition. Film: Beginner’s Luck (Late (Scottish Opera) How High Is Up (Theatre Centre) Drachenfutter, Being Human, Goldeneye, My Son Wolsey), Turn of the Screw, Silas Marner, Limestone World. Officially launched just a few years ago with great fanfare Night Pictures), Door to Door (London Film School) and 6 Ways Out of the Desert (Contact Theatre). The Fanatic, Wild West, Brothers In Trouble, Arabian Cowboy, Cinderella, Mother Goose, Dick and The Ball (Student Film). While training in as a ‘pest-resistant’ GM seed, thousands of acres of Bt Cotton Nights, Immaculate Conception, A Business Affair, Whittington, Aladdin (Coventry Belgrade), Truckers Alex Weller Glasgow: Time Lapse (Arches Theatre), ‘Tis Pity She’s ,Transatlantis, Flight, Partition, Don’t Stop Dreaming, (Harrogate), A Hard Rain (Northampton), The Good Company Stage Manager A Whore, The Pleasureman (Citizens), Orpheus were destroyed by the mealy bug last year. Mad Dogs, Just Ines, What’s Your Name 41? TV: Dr Companions, Country (Stoke New Vic), Dinosaur Alex has worked as a Stage Manager on both a (Athanor Academie, Munich) and Baal (California Who, Fairy Tales – Billy Goat, The Changeling, Dirty Dreams (Unicorn), Hot Doris The Musical (Oval National and International level, including work in Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles). Amarjit was in the Filthy Love, Only Fools & Horses, Roger Roger, High House), Factory Follies (Croydon Warehouse), 72 Dubai, Qatar and Thailand. Productions include Since the late 90s, the spiralling costs of GM seeds, chemical workshop production of Zameen at Soho Theatre. Hopes, Funland, Dalziel & Pascoe, Holby Blue, The Days and Bloody Elektra (Oval House /Albany) and Peter Pan, Jungle Book, Beauty And The Beast, Ali fertilisers and pesticides, machinery and diesel have forced Ravin J Ganatra Lal Last Detective, Murder in Mind, State of Mind, The four years as songwriter/performer with The Hot Baba, Pinocchio, Treasure Island (Universal Shows Graduated from Manchester Polytechnic School of Scarlet Pimpernel, Game On, Two Oranges & A Doris Band. Sayan is also a writer, actor and director. and Entertainment). Nationally Alex has toured independent farmers to take out heavy loans from banks and Mango, Birds of a Feather, Jewel in the Crown, Crown Hansel and Gretel (Theatre Royal, Bury St Theatre. Theatre: Bombay Dreams (RUG), A Natalie Ibu Assistant Director Passage To India (Riverside Studios/Shared Court, Keen Eddy, Civvies. Radio: No 1 Ladies Edmunds); Love And Other Fairy Tales (Scarlet); Graduated in 2004 with First Class Honours degree increasingly private moneylenders, who charge extortionate Experience), The Savage Sensuality (Shakespeare’s Detective Agency. Award: CIVIS Award (Germany) Arabel’s Raven, Anthem For Doomed Youth, It Was A in Theatre from De Montfort University and Globe), The Journey To The West trilogy, The Best Actor for Drachenfutter. Dark And Stormy Night, Shoah (Southampton rates of interest. Their inability to repay these escalating loans completed a year’s attachment as Trainee Director Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Tara Arts), The Nuffield Theatre),Alice In Wonderland, Wind In The Gurpreet Singh Dhanai with New Perspectives Theatre Co. As Assistant Mahabharata (YOMT), Natural World (Kali), Willows, Emma, Ragged Trousered Philanthropists due to low income from repeated crop failures, water shortages, Trained at LAMDA, National Youth Theatre and Director: Fugee (Lyceum Youth Theatre), Peter Pan, Nagwanti (Parampaka Productions), Hamlet, The (Chalkfoot Theatre Arts), Shiver and Bliss (Platform National Youth Music Theatre. Theatre: Ashish in Desire Under the Elms (Citizens), The Shadow of a Pie Winter’s Tale, The Life of Galileo (all Manchester 4), The Twits (The Point YPT), Donkey’s Years low market prices and lack White Open Spaces (Pentabus Theatre), Amiens/ (Lung Ha’s Theatre Co), The Ghost Downstairs, The Library Theatre), Voices On the Wind, Aurangzebe (Vienna’s English Theatre) and A Midsummer Hymen in As You Like It, Sebastian in Twelfth Night Butterfly Lion (New Perspectives Theatre Co). As of government support are (RNT Studio), The Wind In the Willows (Solent Night’s Dream (The Egg, Bath Theatre Royal). Site- (RSC), Orientations (Border Crossings), Manir in East Director: Say What… (Arches Scratch), I Know All People’s Theatre), Travesties (CTC Productions), The specific work includesThreepenny Opera (Class and Is East (New Vic Theatre), Moritz Steifil in Spring The Secrets In My World… (Contact); Women’s driving many farmers into Ramayana (International tours). TV & Film: Corruption, Rye Fisheries), Things That Go Bump Awakening, Cassio in Othello (Leicester Haymarket), Voices (NewWriting NewWorlds), Hang Up, Lesson Coronation St, Prime Suspect, Deep Secrets, No (Fireraisers, South Hill Park), A Midsummer Night’s severe debt. As a final, Sprit in The Ladies Paradise, Maid in The London Learned (Citizens’ Young Co.), Holly’s Chariot Child of Mine, Circles of Deceit, No Worries (ITV Dream (The Point YPT, Netley Abbey) and The Cuckolds, Mysterious Man in Into The Woods (Rehearsed reading for Nottingham Theatre Network), Waterloo Road, Torchwood, Eastenders, Comedy Of Errors (Ludlow Castle, Ludlow Festival) desperate solution, (National Youth Music Theatre). Musical: Bombay Writing Partnerships), Blooded (Fresh Perspectives), Doctors, Holby City, Dalziel and Pascoe, Casualty, Dreams (Victoria Palace Theatre), Cabaret (LAMDA), Road (De Montfort University) and a devised piece Christopher Corner Holding On, The Brittas Empire (BBC), Britz thousands have felt forced Ladies Who Lunch (Workshop Production for RSC). of live art exploring identity, folklore and hair. General Manager (Mentorn/Ch4), Entrapment (Universal), Tom and Radio: On the Air (Workshop for BBC Radio). Participated in master classes with Benji Reid, Max A freelance Theatre Project Manager and to take their own lives. Thomas (UK/Holland). Radio: Regular on Silver TV: Dupinder/Badmarsh in All About Me, Ricky Stafford Clark, Ian Brown, Jonathan Lloyd, Karena Administrator, specialising in new writing, including Street (BBC Asian Network), The Eternal Bubble, Patel in Murder In Mind, Rana in Casualty (BBC). Johnson and Felix Cross. Has also shadowed work with Foco Novo, Joint Stock, Bristol Express, Shakti, Voices On the Wind, The Red Oleander, Land, Film: Shop Assistant in Sari and Trainers (Stretch Jemima Levick (Stellar Quines) and Esther Paines Plough, Half Moon, Royal Court, Moving Satinder Kaur Chohan Skeleton, 2025, Samsara, The Hindu Tradition, The Limo Productions). Gurpreet would like to dedicate Richardson (Nottingham Playhouse). Theatre, The Wedding Collective, Andy Jordan Angel of Nitshill Road, What Now, Now That We Are his performance to Chanan Kaur & Kulwant Kaur. Productions and The Wrestling School.