The Making of the Dream

Tim Supple’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins its India tour.

Seven languages, six cities in India, UK and Sri Lanka and two years in the making, a pioneering theatre production is set to tour India.

A groundbreaking production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is all set for opening night in India. The result of months of intensive effort by former Young Vic Artistic Director, Tim Supple, it will be performed in the four metros around the country through April 2006.

This, the first British Council commissioned Indo-UK theatre production presented jointly with Hutch, brings together a highly talented young Indian and Sri Lankan cast to present the play in a mixture of seven languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Sinhalese and English. The different languages and radically different cultural backgrounds and performance styles of the cast have produced a stylistic melting-pot that promises to lead to a unique interpretation.

The casting has been a marathon event in itself. Strenuous auditions around India and Sri Lanka led to the creation of an initial shortlist of 100 actors, which was eventually whittled down to 60 performers who were brought to the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, where Tim Supple and his team had the hard task of choosing the final performance cast of 22.

The production will then transfer to the UK, where it will be performed at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the eagerly awaited Royal Shakespeare Company Complete Works Festival.

Tim Supple has a strong track record with the RSC already, having directed highly acclaimed productions including The Comedy of Errors, which he toured in India. This experience encouraged him to take on the production, which he said, 'would unite British Council offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Colombo in producing a new piece to tour.' Tim has written his own account of the two-year process to get the production off the ground, culminating in the recent start of rehearsals. In 2005 Tim directed two contemporary works in London - The Cosmonauts' Last Message... at the Donmar Warehouse and What We Did To Weinstein at the Menier Chocolate Factory. He set up a new company, Dash Arts with his partner and collaborator, Melly Still, to tour the Indian Midsummer Night's Dream and create other international works for the theatre and he directed the final gig and rally in the 'Live 8' campaign to coincide with the G8 summit in Edinburgh. For the National he directed and co-adapted Dario Fo's Accidental Death of An Anarchist and Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories. He also led the National's ensemble in 2000 for which he directed Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and The Villain's Opera, a new version of A Beggar's Opera with music by Stephen Warbeck.

He explains how he had to open his mind to the particular greatness and challenges of Indian theatre. All of which, he says, fed into the decision to choose A Midsummer Night's Dream. Tim explains, 'I had been planning to direct the play for years and was inspired by the prospect of doing it in India. I knew that Indian performers, with their great variety of approaches to performance would bring special qualities to the play - and that the play would welcome the variety. And I sensed that The Dream, Shakespeare's most perfectly composed play, would provide a strong architecture to house and nurture the disparate elements of our collaboration.'

Performance dates
New Delhi – 1, 2 and 3 April
Mumbai – 10, 11 and 12 April
Chennai – 19, 20 and 21 April
Kolkata – 28, 29 and 30 April

Free passes for performances in all regions can be collected from the British Council reception in each city.

Speaking about the association, Naveen Chopra, Chief Marketing Officer, Hutchison Essar said, “Hutch has been actively supporting the promotion of art and culture in different parts of the country. Furthering this commitment to promote the performing arts, we are pleased to be associated with the British Council and bring to India the tour of Tim Supple’s impressive production A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The hard work that has gone into customising this play to appeal to the Indian audiences is commendable and will surely lead to an enhanced appreciation of an otherwise outstanding play.”

About the British Council

The British Council is the United Kingdom's international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Our purpose is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and to increase appreciation of the UK's creative ideas and achievements.

The British Council connects people worldwide with learning opportunities and creative ideas from the UK and builds lasting relationships between the UK and other countries.

The British Council was established in India in 1948 and became a Division of the British High Commission in 1972. The headquarters is in New Delhi with offices in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata and British libraries run in co-operation with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in seven cities (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Pune, and Thiruvananthapuram).

About Hutchison Essar Limited

Hutchison Essar Limited, with over 14.5 million* subscribers after the BPL Mobile Cellular Limited acquisition, is one of the most reputed telecom companies in India. Over the years, it has been named the ‘Most Respected Telecom Company’, the 'Best Mobile Service in the country', and the ‘Most Creative and Most Effective Advertiser of the Year’.

*Figures from Cellular Operators Association of India, 28 February 2006

For further information please contact Arundhati Seigell 9810620264 or Neharika Mathur 9818095399.

Genesis Public Relations
Archana Mohan 9899736857

Hutch
Manisha Awasthi 9811918610