PRESS: Anything For You – Breaking New Ground in The Hindu

Arts » Movies

October 18, 2009

Breaking new ground

NIKHIL RAGHAVAN

It’s been in the making for over a year, and finally, “Anything For You”, the first Indo-American movie to be shot on RED camera, is all set for a world-wide release.

Its Tamil avatar, “Ellamey Unnaal”, is also scheduled to hit the screens very soon. Alphonse Roy is the cinematographer of the movie, produced and directed by New York-based Anand Alagappan under the aegis of his New York Talkies banner.

The film’s cast is mostly made up of Indians raised in the U.S., such as Sam Ghosh and Pooja Kumar. Juliana Fine also stars in the film.

The director has already made “Anand’s No Exit”, a short film, and travelogue show, “We Love India”, which was broadcast in the U.S., and on Vijay TV.

We caught up with Anand, who’s ensconced in his New York office, busy preparing for the world-wide release of his movie. Shot extensively on location in New York and India, the film has already won the Silver Ace Award 2009 at the Las Vegas Film Festival. Excerpts from an interview.

The film has been in the making since early 2008. Why did it take so long?

The film was completed early, but we were doing the festival rounds. Taking films that are global in nature to festivals in different countries gives it a lot of exposure. But, doing the festival circuit takes its own sweet time.

What’s the film all about?

It is a love triangle involving an Indian doctor and an American girl, told without any clichés. And, the cast is a mix of Indians and Americans.

When is the international release?

We are looking at Christmas. . It will be dubbed in Tamil and other regional languages too and released in multiplexes.

How is this film different from your previous work?

This is my first feature film. I write my own screenplay and want my movies to be spoken about globally. Like Hollywood couldn’t penetrate the Indian market, Indian movies have not been able to penetrate the American market. I want to break that barrier.

Do you have plans to produce / direct Indian films?

Yes. I want to direct Suriya and Mahesh Babu; I see them as Indian icons rather than as Tamil and Telugu stars. The time is not too far when an American teenager will have an Indian actor’s poster in her/his room. For a change, it would be nice to see an Indian actor saving the world!

What’s the music of the movie like? And, why Karthik Raja?

I have been a fan of Karthik Raja for a long time. I chose him because the film needed a brilliant background score; and he’s done that perfectly. We connected well even during our first meeting.

http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/movies/article35523.ece © The Hindu

PRESS: Coney Island Avenue – Review on TheaterMania.com

August 7, 2009 – Coney Island Avenue had a great review on TheaterMania.com!

Reviews

Coney Island Avenue

Reviewed By: Dan Bacalzo · Aug 7, 2009 · New York

A scene from Coney Island Avenue (© Jess White)

A muscular, heavily tattooed man is thrown down repeatedly by a slender young woman. A group of musicians is drowned out by a woman wailing the lyrics to Alan Jackson’s “When Somebody Loves You.” A group of men strike body-building positions as a recording of the Village People’s “Macho Man” is blared over the speakers. These are a few of the vivid sequences in Charles Mee’s collage-like Coney Island Avenue, now receiving its world premiere at New York Theater Workshop’s Fourth Street Theater, under the capable direction of Anjali Vashi.

The piece is an exploration of Brooklyn and the diversity of its inhabitants, represented here by a rather large, multi-ethnic cast. Throughout the 90-minute performance, various characters introduce themselves to the audience with short statements that briefly encapsulate something about them. These bits are actually additions to Mee’s text by the director and actors, and are often quite funny — or just a bit bizarre.

However, there are several characters, written by Mee, who make repeat appearances, such as Harry (well played by Max Jenkins), who begins the show by reading from Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The closest the piece ever gets to a linear narrative is the story of Yusef (Sam Ghosh) and Anna (Nitya Vidyasagar). Exhausted from late-night conversations, the frustrated Yusef tells Anna to leave their apartment and go back to her father’s house. As a concession, he tells her she can bring whatever she loves or cannot live without. So, she waits until he’s asleep and then takes him. It’s a sweet love story embedded into Coney Island Avenue, as the slumbering Yusef is taken through the streets of Brooklyn, as well as his own dreamland. Somewhere along the way, there’s even a fabulous Bollywood dance sequence.

Several performers make memorable impressions, such as Angela Bonacci as a strong-willed Ukranian woman, and Jennifer Leigh Cohen, who performs a manic dance that has her literally throwing herself against the walls of the space. In fact, while the cast is uneven in its acting ability, nearly all of them commit fully to their physical intentions, and come together as a strong ensemble.

Another crucial component of the production is the use of video, produced and filmed by Christopher Zalewski, that is projected onto a large screen at the back of the space. The images do not necessarily directly correlate to the spoken text, but often provide an atmospheric backdrop to what’s happening onstage. Additionally, the footage incorporates a couple of monologues by a YouTube personality known as “The Kid from Brooklyn,” with a sequence about Starbucks being one of the show’s highlights.

Mee is well known for integrating other people’s words into his plays, and this piece is no exception. His list of sources range from the Tales of Birbal from the court of Emperor Akbar, to blogs and podcasts from the internet. As with many of his works, plot and character are secondary to emotional truth and visual imagery. So, while it’s not always clear why certain things are occurring at any given time within the piece, it all does add up to an engaging experience that can be appreciated for the sum of its parts.

PRESS: Coney Island Avenue – Review in Back Stage & BackStage.com

August 6, 2009 – Coney Island Avenue opened to rave reviews in Back Stage and on BackStage.com.

Coney Island Avenue

Sixdollarsinmypocket Productions at New York Theater Workshop

Reviewed by Jason Fitzgerald

August 06, 2009

PHOTO CREDIT Jess White

After being brutally beaten by her lover, a woman faces the audience and through her tears describes how to build one’s dream house out of lottery tickets. Her strength in the face of obvious disillusionment is the heart of Charles Mee’s “Coney Island Avenue.” Ostensibly a celebration of Brooklyn, Mee’s deeper interest is the challenge and emotional turbulence of life in a culturally plural, economically disparate urban culture. He explored similar material in “Queen’s Boulevard” at the Signature Theater in 2007, but that play failed to hold up under its thin and uninventive narrative. In “Coney Island Avenue,” Mee fully embraces the collage structure for which he is best known. Scenes follow each other like pages in a catalog, not so much a journey but an accumulation, a Whitmanesque registry of cultures, values, dreams, and fears.

For sure, the play risks becoming a bland celebration of the pleasures of pluralism, but it is ultimately the characters’ failures—at love, at their jobs, at living together—and their refusal to give up that binds them together. When the 19-person cast stands in a line to sing “My Way,” they reveal a mix of colors, shapes, and sizes that makes “A Chorus Line” look like the Rockettes. They sing the song with teeth-grinding anger and rousing fierceness, very much of this world rather than an idealized utopia.

Credit for such images belongs as much to Mee as to producer-director Anjali Vashi, who expertly fits this big play into the small New York Theater Workshop space. The intimacy heightens the production’s energy, and Vashi keeps the action moving and the stage pictures consistently fresh. She lets each cast member enjoy a moment of virtuosity—one woman sings “When Somebody Loves You” terribly and at full volume, two men fight back tears in five minutes of brave wordlessness—and then whisks them back into the collective. Videos and still images on an upstage screen complement but never overshadow the live performance. The theatricality and spontaneity of Vashi’s production tell all the story “Coney Island Avenue” needs: Stuff happens, and you keep on moving.

Presented by Sixdollarsinmypocket Productions
at New York Theater Workshop, 83 E. Fourth St., NYC.
Aug. 5–16. Tue.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m.(212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.

THEATER: Anuvab Pal’s Chaos Theory – August 11 Reading @ CUNY Grad Center

August 11, 2009 – “Two Indian professors in America. 30 Years of Shakespeare, verbal duels, jokes, alcohol. And the impefect physics of love.”

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to read an excerpt from Anuvab Pal’s Chaos Theory as a part of the launch of Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora.  The reading was directed by Gita Reddy and comprised of Kapil Bawa, Sam Ghosh, Sunita Sunder, Nitya Vidyasagar, and a special guest appearance by Rajesh Bose.

Anuvab Pal

More information about the event:

Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora

For two days in August, join us we host a launch and series of readings celebrating Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora, a collection of South Asian diasporic plays. Edited by Neilesh Bose, this book includes eleven plays from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Canada, the four main English-speaking regions of the diaspora.

Showcasing themes like immigrant consciousness, race and racialism, intra- and inter-ethnic conflict and solidarity, socio-economic class, and adaptations of classic Western drama, this collection of plays represents a diverse set of aesthetics and politics. Integrating veteran talents like the South African Ronnie Govender, American theatre and television personalities like Aasif Mandvi, and British Asian innovators like Jatinder Verma and Rukhsana Ahmad, the program will feature the most contemporary dramatic literature emanating from the diaspora today. With special guests Aroon Shivdasani (Director of the Indo-American Arts Council), Ian Morgan (Assoc. Artistic Director, The New Group), and Paul Knox, Playwright.

Playwrights invited include:
Aasif Mandvi, Shishir Kurup, Anuvab Pal, Rukshana Ahmad, Jatinder Verma, Sudha Bhuchar & Kristin Landon-Smith, Rana Bose, Rahul Varma, Ronnie Govender, & Kriben Pillay.

Curated and co-produced by the editor, Dr. Neilesh Bose, in close collaboration with Dr. Frank Hentschker.
With additional support from the Indo-American Arts Council, The Lark Play Development Center, SALAAM Theatre, South Asian Theatre Movement (SATAM), and the New Group Theatre.

Neilesh Bose is an historian and theatre artist who specializes in South Asia history, South Asian diasporas, and performance studies. He holds a PhD in South Asian history from Tufts University. In addition to his edited anthology, Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora (Indiana, 2009), other theatre-related publications include a translation, jointly with Sudipto Chatterjee, of Utpal Dutt’s play The Rights of Man (Maanusher Adhikare) (Seagull, 2009) and Shylock and Sharuk: The Creation of a South Asian American Aesthetic in South Asian Popular Culture (2009 special summer edition).

Additional information on the author and the book can be found here:

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005826.html

http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/voices.php?t=bose

6:30 p.m., Mon. & Tue., August 10-11th, 2009
Martin E. Segal Theatre. Free!

Schedule of Events

DAY 1: Monday August 10th, 2009

4 – 4:30 p.m.

Welcome & Opening Address, Neilesh Bose
The South Asian Diasporic Performative and Historical Ecumene

Session 1: United Kingdom

4:30 – 5:30 p.m. Rukshana Ahmad’s Song for a Sanctuary, directed by Geeta Citygirl
Jatinder Verma’s 2001: A Ramayana Odyssey, directed by Shishir Kurup

5:30 – 6 p.m., Discussion, moderated by Rita Wolf

Session 2: South Africa

7 – 8 p.m., Ronnie Govender’s The Lahnee’s Pleasure, directed by Ian Morgan
Kessie Govender’s Working Class Hero, directed by Ian Morgan

8 – 8:45 p.m., Discussion, moderated by Neilesh Bose

8:45 – 10 p.m. – Reception

DAY 2: Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009

4 p.m.

Keynote Address, Introduction by Neilesh Bose

4 – 4:30 p.m., Who am I? South African Indian Theatre and Indian South Africans, with Ronnie Govender

Session 3: North America

4:30 – 5:30 p.m., North American Plays I

Anuvab Pal, Chaos Theory, directed by Gita Reddy
Aasif Mandvi, Sakina’s Restaurant, performed by the author

6:30 – 7:30 p.m., North American Plays II
Rana Bose, Death of Abbie Hoffman, directed by Geeta Citygirl
Rahul Varma, Bhopal, directed by Geeta Citygirl

7:30 – 8:15 p.m., North American Plays III
Shishir Kurup, Merchant on Venice, directed by the author

8:15 – 9 p.m. – Discussion led by Fawzia Afzal-Khan

8:45 – 10 p.m.- Reception

TV: The Philanthropist – August 5 @ 10PM on NBC

August 4, 2009 – Recently, I did a bunch of voice-overs for an episode of NBC’s The Philanthropist.  I played everything from a village sheep herder to a Pakistani diplomat, a Mumbai street chaiwalla to a Kashmiri terrorist, an Indian politician to a Bengali news reporter.

It will be airing tomorrow, Wednesday, August 5th 10/9c on NBC.  In this week’s episode, Teddy and Phillip’s college friend asks for their help to negotiate with the Indian and Pakistani governments to rebuild the region’s water system.

If you miss the episode, you can catch it anytime on The Philanthropist’s website at http://www.nbc.com/the-philanthropist/.

THEATER: Charles L. Mee’s Coney Island Avenue – August 5-16 @ New York Theatre Workshop

July 30, 2009 – Coney Island Avenue “is an explosion of spoken word performance, film, live and recorded music and dance. It is a piece that takes an acute look into the varied lives and ever day struggles of the dynamic and diverse population of Brooklyn, New York in 2009.”

sixdollarsinmypocket productions present:

THE WORLD PREMIERE PRODUCTION OF

CONEY ISLAND AVENUE

Written by Charles L. Mee
Directed by Anjali Vashi

With: Jenny Bennett, Claudeen Benoit, Angela Bonacci, Jennifer Leigh Cohen, Tim Dax, Sam Ghosh, William S. Huntley III*, Sandhya Jain, Max Jenkins, Haerry Kim*, Aryeh Lappin, Franco Pistritto, Rachel Popson, Casey Robinson, Jerilyn Sackler*, Bobby Savage, Lauren Sharpe, chandra thomas*, Nitya Vidyasagar*, and Annie Yim

* Appearance courtesy of Actors Equity Association

First Preview on August 5th, 2009
Performances from August 6 – 16, 2009
Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8pm
Saturday Matinees at 2pm
Sundays at 5pm

New York Theatre Workshop
83 East 4th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY

***Very special talkbacks with playwright Charles L. Mee and artist Laurel Nakadate directly following the Tuesday 8/11 and Thursday 8/13 performances. No extra charge.***

Tickets $18.

General/Production Manager: Vanessa Poggioli
Lighting Designer: Dans Sheedan
Sound Designer: Sara Huddleston
Costume Designer: Hwi Won Lee
Technical Director: Shane Terenzi
Filmographer/Film Production: Chris Zalewski
Assistant Director: Chloe Deschamps
Choreographer: Bobby Savage
Marketing Director: David Hatkoff
Associate Producer: Alona Fogel
Dramaturg: Emily Madison
Production Assistant: Alex Mallory
Stage Manager: Nicole Marconi

For tickets, visit:
http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=CON58&GUID=02a0ec57-156e-4c17-b4f3-681d6c2d5a70

WWW: Days of Joy! with Gene Moonfeather – I Am Salim Khan

July 1, 2009 – Days of Joy! with Gene Moonfeather, a new web series, has recently been launched by my good friend and fellow Esper-ite, Chris Stetson.

“Days of Joy! with Gene Moonfeather follows the day-to-day exploits of Gene Moonfeather, a 24 year old yoga teacher in Brooklyn with a repressed rage issue.  Gene is a vegan, semi practicing Buddhist and totally lost individual.  When he begins having feelings for fellow Om Skool yoga teacher Summer Macintosh, Gene embarks on an inner journey to explore the makings of his psyche including his inability to express anger and assert his seemingly stifled masculinity.”

At the local organic grocery store awaits Salim Khan, a badass, sarcastic, payback version of Apu.  He has no tolerance for Gene and his fruitcakey friends.  Yet when the opportunity arises, he opens the door to his deep and dangerous world of dry wit.

So far, Salim has made appearances in the 1st and 4th episodes and for your viewing convenience, I have embedded them below.

Episode 1

Episode 4

Episodes are released at every Wednesday at noon.  For more information:

Visit the Official Website of Days of Joy! with Gene Moonfeather.

Become a Fan of Gene Moonfeather on Facebook.

Follow Gene Moonfeather on Twitter.

THEATER: Seven.11 Convenience Theater 2009 – June 17-28 @ Center Stage

June 3, 2009 – After six years of sold out shows, Desipina’s Seven.11 Convenience Theater is closing up shop.  However, they’re not leaving without a proper GREATEST HITS BLOWOUT ALL THINGS MUST GO type of show.

Before I give you more information on how to check it out, here’s a taste of Seven.11.  It’s a five minute short film called “SAVING HINDUISM” about how the Hindu Gods Brahma (Andrew Guilarte) and Krishna (me, myself, and I) will “creatively” secure the future of Hinduism.  It is written by Uday Jhunjhunwala, directed by Rakesh Chaudhary, and presented by Desipina.

Desipina & COMPANY
Rehana Mirza, Artistic Director & Rohi Mirza Pandya, Producing Director present

Seven.11 Convenience Theatre (2009): The Final Year

Directed by RJ Tolan, Kel Haney and Robert Ross Parker
Musical Director Samrat Chakrabarti

Only for 10 Performances

Opening Night Wednesday, June 17, 2009

At Center Stage

48 W. 21st  Street, 4th Floor, NYC

June 17, 2009 – June 28, 2009

Wednesday to Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm

$18 General Tickets
https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/662685

With: Andrew Guilarte, Kavi Ladnier, Cindy Cheung*, Sam Ghosh, Tim Cain*, Jay Lee and Christopher Larkin*   *Denotes Actor’s Equity

The final Seven plays:
Soonderella by Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri
A new pop musical involving a fairy tale of a different colour.

Color Me Desi by Rishi Chowdhary
A liquor-run to the convenience store before the big desi party uncovers that there are more shades of brown than there are colors to Holi.

One Dollar Box  by Eugene Oh
A provocative tribute about anybody’s father, anybody’s son and the desperate measures that arise when life boxes you in. Working man, work it man.

A Very Desi Christmas by Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri
An original pop musical that illuminates the true meaning of rice.

Closing Up Shop by Carla Ching
A look at what happens when it’s time to move on to the next generation.

What’s in Store by Rehana Mirza
A run-in at the convenience store leaves its manager with the keys to closing up.

Raj Against the Machine by Vishakan Jeyakumar
A Sri Lankan immigrant questions his life in the convenience store, with his best customer by his side.

Production Team
Production Stage Manager – Nick Tochelli
Assistant Stage Manager- Shannon O’Connor
Set – Jason Simms
Asst Set/Props – Amy Lee
Costumes – Jenny Fisher
Lights – Jeff McCrum
Sound – len DeNiro
Choreographer – Sandhya Jain
Graphic/website design Nilou Moochhala
Technical supervisor Enayet Rasul
Original 7-11 logo and t-shirt graphic design Atif Toor

Desipina producing team: Yasmin Madraswala, Vikram Bhat, Rowena Harry, Jessica Devi, Rakesh Choudhary, Uday Jhunjhunwala, Meetu Chilana

This project is made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and also from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.  Additional funding was provided by Off Broadway Angels, Nancy Quinn Fund, and the Dramatists Guild.

Special Thanks to DESICLUB (www.DesiClub.com)

FEATURE: Love Marriage – Reading June 6, 5:15pm @ SVA Theater

June 3, 2009 – A reading of LOVE MARRIAGE, a new screenplay by Soman Chainani, will be taking place this Saturday, June 6th at 5:15pm @ SVA Theater 1 (23rd St. between 8th and 9th Ave).  The tickets are $12 and can be purchased here: http://filmguide.newfest.org/tixSYS/2009/filmguide//films/1121.

About Love Marriage: Set in London, LOVE MARRIAGE, written by Soman Chainani, is the story of two siblings in an Indian family who throw dueling weddings — one for love, one for money — forcing their parents to choose between them. Winner of over 20 international script honors, including the Abu Dhabi Pearl Grant, LOVE MARRIAGE is an unabashed celebration of love that bridges between East and West, inspires laughter and tears, and heralds the wedding film to end all wedding films.

About the Reading: NewFest is pleased to present a staged reading of the second winner of our 2008 NewDraft Screenplay Writing Competition: LOVE MARRIAGE, a new script by Soman Chainani, featuring Maulik Pancholy (30 Rock, Weeds), Nina Mehta, Brian Leider, Sakina Jaffrey, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Geeta Citygirl, Rajiv Varma, Sam Ghosh, Eliyas Quereshi and Margaret Champagne.  Winner of over 20 international script honors, LOVE MARRIAGE is an unabashed celebration of love that bridge East and West, inspires laughter and tears, and heralds the wedding film to end all wedding films.  Created by former Artistic Director Basil Tsiokos, NewDraft is NewFest’s Screenplay Competition & Reading Series, dedicated to discovering and fostering LGBT feature screenwriters and/or LGBT feature screenplays.  LOVE MARRIAGE was one of the two winners of the inaugural competition at the 2008 festival.  Before NewDraft was formalized as a program, NewFest presented screenplay readings of ANOTHER GAY MOVIE, WERE THE WORLD MINE, and ANOTHER GAY SEQUEL, all of which went on to be made into films.

Previously on Love Marriage: http://samghosh.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/theater-love-marriage-%E2%80%93-newdraft-screenplay-competition/.

COMMERCIAL: Xoom.com – Launched on Sony, Zee, & WWW

June 3, 2009 – The Xoom.com commercial that I mentioned in my post on April 26 has been launched is currently airing on Sony Entertainment TV, Zee TV USA, in my Commercial section, and right here:

Thanks again to all involved.  The commercial looks great!  I, on the other hand, look like the Indian version of the Pringles Guy (without the mustache).