ADAPTED BY HARDEEP SINGH KOHLI & JATINDER VERMA CASTIN ORDER OF APPEARANCE ANTONY BUNSEE KRUPA PATTANI / HARJINDER DIMPLE LALLI FARISHTA Trained: Bristol Old Vic Trained at Drama Studio Theatre School and University London. Theatre includes: of Exeter. Twelfth Night (Grosvenor Stage: Dracula, Derby Park Open Air Theatre), Playhouse; Revengers’ Masters Are You Mad? Tragedy (tour), The White (Grosvenor Park Open Air Devil (tour); Homebody Kabul Theatre), Bollywood Cinderella (Cheek by Jowel); A Passsage (Tara Arts), dinnerladies: to India (Shared Experience) second helpings (UK Tour), For the RSC:The Odyssey, Moonfleece (Riverside Studios Tamburlaine, The School of and UK tour), dinnerladies Night, Midnights’ Children (UK Tour), Starfish (London and The Histories Company. Tour/Y Touring), Lichentongue (2006-8) For Tara Arts: The (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) Government Inspector, Unzipped (Young Vic/ Talawa), Oedipus, Pinocchio Gone Handful of Henna (Sheffield Asia, The Merchant of Venice. Theatres), The Borrowers TV Includes: Hollyoaks, My (MAC) and Child of the Divide Family and Eastenders. Film: (Polka Theatre/ Tamasha) Get The Picture, Dorian Gray, TV includes: MI High and Sex and the City 2, Jadoo. Casualty (BBC) SAM KORDBACHEH DEVEN MODHA VALMIKI KISHORE / MANJU Sam trained at ALRA and Deven trained at Birmingham during his time there he School of Acting. Roles whilst played Iago in Othello at the training: Mephistopheles (Dr. Sam Wanamaker Festival at Faustus); Mowgli (The Jungle Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre; Book). Since graduating, he Orsino in Twelfth Night, has completed shooting on Ali Baba in Arabian Nights, a feature film entitled Shoot Jacques in As You Like It and Me directed by acclaimed Blackmouth in Live Like Pigs. German director Niko von Theatre credits include: Glasow (Palladio Film) due for Terry Johnson’s Hysteria with release in 2013. He has worked Theatre Royal Bath, Lorenzo with BBC Wales; performed in The Merchant of Venice, Mr at Trafalgar Studios (Mercury Darling and Slightly in Peter Fur, Greenhouse Theatre) Pan, Tim Allgood in Noises Off and is a member of Tamasha and Fausto in The Talented Mr Theatre’s Developing Artists’ Ripley at the Queen’s Theatre, programme. Hornchurch. Sam’s TV credits include: Genie in the House for Nickelodeon. MEHRISH YASIN CAROLINE KILPATRICK MARIAM / KOHLI FROSINE / ASLAM This is Mehrish’s debut at Tara Caroline trained at RADA. Arts. She trained at Drama Theatre includes: The Studio London, graduating last Tempest and Hotbed, both summer. Previous professional Tara Arts; Innocence and theatre credits include Fatima Yerma, both at the Arcola; in Pentecost at St Leonards Stephen and the Sexy Shoreditch, which was Partridge, Old Red Lion; nominated for the Off West- Dance/Radio, Guilty, DryWrite, End Theatre Award for Best Latitude 2008 & 2010, A Ensemble Cast and Dinarzade Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Arabian Nights at the Blue Hobson’s Choice, Rel, The Orange Theatre. Other roles Death of Tintagel, SaltPeter at include Navenka in Once We People’s Show; The Love of the Were Mothers and Hermione Nightingale for Rough Fiction. in The Winter’s Tale. Film includes: Lady Teazle in The Invisible Woman which is released in 2013. SOHINI ALAM DANYAL DHONDY SINGER KEYBOARD Sohini Alam is a British vocalist Danyal is a London-based of Bangladeshi descent whose composer and arranger. He musical repertoire includes has written two operas for folk, patriotic, modern and premieres this year: Just So traditional Bengali songs (Tête à Tête Festival, directed with a specialisation in Nazrul by Jatinder Verma), and The Sangeet. She has branched Open Cage (The Yard, 5-7 Oct). out into multi-lingual music He has made arrangements in bands, dance, and theatre. for OperaUpClose and A third generation vocalist, Malmö Opera, which led Sohini trained in music with to a nomination for an Hiron Alam, Jannat Ara and Arts Foundation Award in Ferdous Ara. She is the lead Opera Composition. He has vocalist for Khiyo and Kishon arranged string parts for Khan’s Afro-Cuban-Bengali albums including Sam Lee’s jazz band, Lokkhi Terra. Mercury-nominated ‘Ground of its Own’, and composed three pieces for Kensington Chamber Orchestra. HASSAN MOHYEDDIN PERCUSSION Hassan Mohyeddin is a tabla player, multi- percussionist and music producer. He hails from the Punjab School of Tabla, having trained for several years with tabla maestro, Ustad Lachhman Singh Seen. Hassan has a degree in music production and sound engineering from the London School of Sound and has worked as a professional musician for the last ten years. He has toured many countries, collaborating with artists including Nahid Siddiqui, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Baluji Srivastav. He currently plays in London based bands Lokkhi Terra and Khiyo. INTRODUCTION Has there ever been a better time to revisit Moliere’s The Miser? It’s King Louis XIV France. Louis emboldened Seventeenth century Paris, a Paris at the zenith of fashion, a city of architectural splendour, titillating gossip, and political intrigue. 2012. Our world spins on an axis of the financial, orbits the chaos of consumerism. We have crashed and burned, seemingly imprisoned by the free market. While the world’s may seem different human nature has changed little. But today’s India…well, its trajectory is inexorably upward. Moliere’s Harpagon become’s Tara Arts Harjinder, and while the names change, the accents and a few references it is astonishing how crackling, how coruscatingly contemporary the narrative is, particularly given the moraes of modern, ebullient India. The Miser is my second collaboration with Jatinder Verma; the second of many. I was initially marked by Moliere 25 years ago, watching Liz Lochead’s stunning Scots translation of Tartuffe. Jatinder brought me The Miser, a play I had heard much about but had never seen produced. The humour, the politics, the challenge to theatrical convention; there’s so much to love about Moliere. Giving words to Jatinder is a humbling and liberating experience. He assembles an excellent cast, superb musicians and somehow finds a way through the wrods. He lives, breathes and probably bleeds theatre. I have come to learn that given a script he lives, breathes and bleeds those words into theatre; and it’s theatre that I love. Hardeep Singh Kohli HARDEEP SINGH KOHLI WRITER / ADAPTATION Hardeep Singh Kohli, as well as being a seasoned reporter, comic, cook and presenter, has had an acclaimed career as a journalist and writer. His column in Scotland on Sunday saw him nominated twice for Scottish Columnist of the Year as well as articles for the Independent on Sunday, The Guardian and The Times. For BBC Radio 4 current series on Asians returning to India and BBC Radio 2 Hardeep at the Stand. For Channel 4 he wrote and presented the BAFTA award winning In search of the Tartan Turban. Hardeep has previously performed at Tara Theatre, with sold- out audiences of his Edinburgh show Chat Masala, The Nearly Naked Chef and Indian Takeaway. CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE HARJINDER ANTONY BUNSEE DIMPLE / LALLI FARISHTA KRUPA PATTANI VALMIKI SAM KORBACHEH KISHORE / MANJU DEVEN MODHA MARIAM / KOHLI MEHRISH YASIN FROSINE / ASLAM CAROLINE KILPATRICK MUSICIANS SINGER SOHINI ALAM KEYBOARD DANYAL DHONDY PERCUSSION HASAN MOHYEDDIN CREATIVES TRANSLATION PATRICIA DREYFUS WRITER / ADAPTATION HARDEEP SINGH KOHLI CO-WRITER / DIRECTOR JATINDER VERMA DESIGN CLAUDIA MAYER LIGHTING DESIGN HOWARD HUDSON MUSICAL DIRECTOR DANYAL DHONDY COMPOSITION SOHINI ALAM COMPOSITION HASAN MOHYEDDIN CHOREOHRAPHY SHREYA KUMAR PRODUCTION PRODUCTION MANAGER CHRIS MUSGRAVE SCENIC ARTIST MADELINE HERBERT COSTUME SUPERVISOR HILARY LEWIS COSTUME ASSISTANT ELIN KARNER STAGE MANAGER KELSI LEWIS ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER BETH DUNCAN PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS TALULA SHEPPARD TARA ARTS TEAM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JATINDER VERMA ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR - DESIGN CLAUDIA MAYER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JONATHAN KENNEDY MARKETING OFFICER AMY BRIGGS DEVELOPMENT OFFICER INE VAN RIET THEATRE ADMINISTRATOR MARTINA FERRY FINANCE OFFICER XIAO HONG (SHARON) ZHANG MARKETING INTERN MARION BUI PRESS AGENT DAVID BURNS [email protected] SPECIAL THANKS NAUSHABA KHAN-LEVY FRONT OF HOUSE VOLUNTEERS ALEXANDRA WYATT BEN STEVENS STEVE WILSON ANDREAS AYLING SARAH-LOUISE MUTTON MATTHEW SCHNEIDER JOHN GOBLIRSCH CHARLOTTE DERANEK EMMELINE HARRIS BROADWAY THEATRE - BARKING MARTIN ROBERTS, BSL INTERPRETER JACK HYLANDS CEREN BAYRAKTAR ALRA CREATIVES MOLIERE WRITER (L’AVARE) Molière (1622-1673) was a French playwright who is considered to be one of the greatest comic dramatists. His style blended comedy with Commedia dell’arte and controversially touched upon social issues of his time. His masterpieces include: Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope), Tartuffe ou L’Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Imposter), and L’Avare (The Miser). PATRICIA DREYFUS TRANSLATOR I first became interested in the subtleties of translation versus interpretation whilst writing my dissertation on the French and Italian versions of Melville’s Moby Dick at Sussex University. When I was asked by Tara to work on The Miser, I rose to the challenge of staying faithful to the spirit of Moliere. JATINDER VERMA WRITER / DIRECTOR Jatinder Verma is co-founder and Artistic Director of Tara Arts. Most recently Jatinder directed the Just So Opera for the Tête à Tête Festival. In 2011 he directed Bollywood Cinderella, Tara Arts’ Christmas pantomime, Alex Wheatle’s Uprising which toured the UK and The Mysteries with ALRA to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible touring junior schools. In 2010 he directed Gandhi in London at The Temple Church and Miranda by Farroukh Dhondy for the Edinburgh Festival. In 2009 he directed Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album for the National Theatre and UK Tour. He first worked at the National in 1989, with an acclaimed version of Moliere’s Tartuffe. CLAUDIA MAYER DESIGN Claudia Mayer trained with Percy Harris at Motley and worked freelance in Opera, Ballet and Theatre. Work for Tara Arts includes: Miranda, The Black Album (costume), The Tempest, The Marriage of Figaro, An Enemy of the People, The Merchant of Venice, Journey to the West (a trilogy), 2001 a Ramayan Odyssey, two large-scale events in Trafalgar Square.