Alter Ego Blog

Alter Ego Productions is pleased to announce Tariq Ali's The Leopard and the Fox as our forthcoming production. The Leopard and the Fox was originally written in 1985 as a three part BBC screenplay that follows the last days of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first popularly elected prime minister of Pakistan, deposed in a coup, and then put to death by hanging in 1979 by his former chief of army staff, General Zia ul Haq, who became the President of Pakistan, only to die himself in mysterious circumstances in a plane crash in 1988.

Alter Ego is in the midst of adapting the riveting drama of these two outsize personalities battling each other to a standoff in their quest for power. In life and death the actions of these men and their consequences have not just influenced Pakistan but divided the country, into legions of their detractors and supporters, passionately arguing about each leader's contribution to the failure and success in their country's history. The reverberations of that period in Pakistan's history is being felt in the international arena today.

Tariq Ali's screenplay was controversial and was flagged by the legal department of the BBC for the potential lawsuits that it could have engendered. Rather than face the legal consequence, the BBC decided to can the production. The casting had almost been done and luminaries like Naseeruddin Shah (to play Bhutto) and Angelica Huston had agreed to their roles. The screenplay was finally published by Seagull Books in October 2006.

The synopsis:

"The BBC commissioned Tariq Ali to write a three-part TV series on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. As rehearsals were about to begin, the BBC hierarchy - under pressure from the Foreign Office - decided to cancel the project. Why? General Zia ul Haq, the dictator at the time, was leading the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was backed by the USA. According to expert legal opinion, there was a possibility of a whole range of defamation suits from the head of state to judges involved in the case. In consequence, it was decided not to broadcast this hard-hitting and provocative play. "The Leopard and the Fox" presents both the script and the story of censorship."

Alter Ego is planning to stage the play mid October at TBG Main Space at 312, 36th St and 8th Avenue.

Tariq Ali is a very well known activist and writer. He is an editor at the New Left Review and has written many critically acclaimed books like The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), Bush in Bablylon (2003), and Conversations with Edward Said (2005).

We are extremely pleased to announce that Giovanna Sardelli, one of the rising new stars is directing the play. Giovanna is a graduate of the NYU Tisch School of Arts and is on their faculty teaching acting. She has directed, amongst other plays, Rajiv Joseph's Huck and Holden (Cherry Lane Development Series), All that Intimacy (Second Stage Uptown), and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Lark Play Development Center). She is a Creative associate at the Lark Theater and is on the faculty at NYU, teaching acting at the Tisch.

Rajiv Joseph is writing the adaptation. Rajiv is a graduate of the NYU Tisch School of Arts and has written Huck and Holden and All That Intimacy, two plays that were very well received and attracted a good deal of attention. He most recently wrote Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, as part of the Lark Development series. Rajiv also teaches expository writing in NYU’s College of Arts and Science.

The new production comes on the heels of Alter Ego's very successful 2006 production A First Class Man. We played to full houses and garnered very good reviews from the theater critics.

Posted by Shourin Roy at 03:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ALTEREGO productions invites you to the world premiere of

A First Class Man

One man in pursuit of infinity. The astonishing true story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the renowned mathematical prodigy whose ideas changed the world as we know it.

Written by DAVID FREEMAN + directed by KAREEM FAHMY*

Starring:

Bobby Abid, Chriselle Almeida*, Amir Arison*, Kelly Eubanks, Steve French*, Davis Hall*, Timothy Roselle*, Doug Simpson, Vikram Somaya, Radhika Vaz

Production:

Stage Manager: Nilou Safinya, Sets: Jeffery Eisenmann, Costumes: Chloe Chapin, Sound & Music: Andrew Papadeas , Lights: Bryan Keller

At

The 45th Street Theater (354 W. 45th St)

Performances: October 5th to 21st:
Wednesday through Saturday at 8 pm (except Fri Oct 6 at 7 pm)
Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 pm

To purchase the $18/- Tickets:
www.smarttix.com ; (212) 868-4444.

For Oct 6th Opening Night Tickets, please contact:

Priyanka Lilaramani: priyanka@stern.nyu.edu ; 917 715 3287

For Press inquiries, please contact:

Shourin Roy: sr240@columbia.edu; 646 662 6057

*Past Press: *

*Theater Mania* - "The professionalism, wit and daring on abundant display . . . . make AlterEgo Productions a company to look out for"

*TheaterMania* - listed Indian Ink under best of 2003 as a "Shows You Should Have Seen But Probably Didn't"

www.alteregoproductions.org

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Anuvab Pal (playwright and screenwriter): Anuvab Pal's plays include Chaos Theory (Alter Ego Productions, SALAAM Theatre, Producers Club, Here Theatre, 78 th Street Theatre Lab, American Theatre of Actors, American Place Theatre, Greenwich Street Theatre- all in NYC, ArtWallah Festival- Los Angeles, Georgetown University, STAGE festival–Washington DC, Edward Albee Theatre Festival- Alaska, Rasik Arts- Toronto, Finalist- Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship), Out of Fashion (Asian-American Writers Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Source- in NYC, Edward Albee Theatre Festival – Alaska), Life, Love and EBITDA (Lark Theatre-South Asian Diaspora Festival 2003, Epic Theatre – in NYC, Finalist-Playwrights Center/Guthrie Theatre- Minnesota, Artwallah Festival-Los Angeles). FATWA (New York International Fringe Festival 2004, Blue Heron Arts Center-NYC, Silk Road Theatre-Chicago). He wrote a one act play titled Paris (Lower East Side Tenement Museum -7.11 Convenience Theatre Festival 2005). His most recent play The President is Coming premiered at The Rage Productions/ Royal Court Theatre Writers Bloc Festival in Mumbai, India. His screenplays include the independent films: LOINS OF PUNJAB PRESENTS - selected for THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2006 (Dir: Manish Acharya- with Shabana Azmi and Ayesha Dharker), CROSSROADS (Dir: Rajyashree Ojha- with Victor Banerjee, Soha Ali Khan, Zeenat Aman) and Arranged Marriage (Dir: Piyush Dinker Pandya). He is a member playwright of The Pulse Ensemble Theatre and The Harbor Theatre, an Associate member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Literary Manager of SALAAM Theatre, as well as a teaching associate with Epic Theatre, where he works with NYC school kids with an interest in playwriting. Life, Love and EBITDA played as part of the Public Theatre's New Work Now! 2005 Festival. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Time Out New York, Time Out Mumbai, Theatermania , NY Theatre, Village Voice, Playbill, India Today, The Hindu, Rediff/ India Abroad, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, and many other publications. He lives between Mumbai and New York.

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Born on May 19, 1938, in Mathern, Maharastra, Girish Karnad has become one of India's brightest shining stars, earning international praise as a playwright, poet, actor, director, critic, and translator. As a young man studying at Karnataka University, Dharwar, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mathematics and Statistics in 1958, Karnad dreamed of earning international literary fame, but he thought that he would do so by writing in English. Upon graduation, he went to England and studied at Oxford where he earned a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to receive a Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He would eventually achieve the international fame he had dreamed of, but not for his English poetry. Instead, Karnad would earn his reputation through decades of consistent literary output on his native soil.

His first play, Yahati (1961), was written neither in English nor in his mother tongue Konkani. Instead, it was composed in his adopted language Kannada. The play, which chronicled the adventures of mythical characters from the Mahabharata, was an instant success and was immediately translated and staged in several other Indian languages. His best loved play, however, would come three years later. By the time Tughlaq, a compelling allegory on the Nehruvian era, was performed by the National School of Drama, Karnad had established himself as one of the most promising playwrights in the country. He soon quit his post at the Oxford University Press, deciding to focus all of his energies on his writing.

For four decades, Karnad has continued to compose top-notch plays, often using history and mythology to tackle contemporary themes. He has also forayed into the jungle of cinema, working alternately as an actor, director, and screenwriter, and earning numerous awards along the way. At the age of sixty, however, Karnad is vowing to give up cinema for the stage. "I've had a good life," he says. "I have managed to do all I could wish for--even be a government servant! Now I feel whatever time I have left should be spent doing what I like best--writing plays."

Karnad's awards include the Mysore State Award for Yayathi (1962), the Government of Mysore Rajyotsava Award (1970), Presidents Gold Medal for the Best Indian film for Samskara (1970), the Homi Bhabha Fellowship for creative work in folk theatre (1970-72), the Sangeet Natak Academy (National Academy of the Performing Arts) Award for playwriting (1972), the Kamaladevi Award of the Bharatiya Natya Sangh for the Best Indian play of the year for Hayavadana (1972), the National Award for Excellence in Direction for Vamsha Vriksha (shared with B.V. Karanth - 1972), the Mysore State Award for the Best Kannada film and the Best Direction for Vamsha Vriksha (1972), the Presidents Silver Medal for the Second Best Indian film for Kaadu (1974), the Padma Shri Award (1974), the National Award for the Best Kannada film for Ondanondu Kaaladalli (1978), the National Award for the Best Script for Bhumika (shared with Shyam Benegal and Satyadev Dubey - 1978), the Film Fare Award for the Best Script for Godhuli (shared with B.V. Karanth - 1978), the Best Bengal Film Journalists Association Award for the Best Actor in Swami (1978), the Karnataka Nataka Academy Award (1984), the Nandikar, Calcutta, Award for Playwriting (1989), the Golden Lotus for the Best Non-Feature Film for Kanaka Purandara (1989), the National Award for the Best Non-Feature Film on Social Issues for The Lamp in the Niche (1990), "Writer of the Year" Award from Granthaloka Journal of the Book Trade for Taledanda (1990), Karnataka State Award for the Best Supporting Actor in Santa Shishunala Shareef (1991), the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award for the Most Creative Work for Nagamandala (1992), the B.H. Sridhar Award for Taledanda (1992), the Padma Bhushan Award (1992), the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award for Best Play for Taledanda (1992), the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India Award (1992), the National Award for the Best Film on Environmental Conservation for Cheluvi (1993), a Special Honour Award from the Karnataka Sahitya Academy (1994), the Sahitya Academy Award for Taledanda (1994), and the Gubbi Veeranna Award (1996-97), and the Jnanpith Award (1999). He also served as Director of the Film and Television Institute of India (1974-75), President of the Karnataka Nataka Academy (1976-78), Indian Co-Chairman for the Joint Media Committee of the Indo-U.S. sub-Commission on Education and Culture (1984-93), Visiting Professor and Fulbright Scholar in Residence at the University of Chicago (1987-88), and Chairman of the Sangeet Natak Academy of Performing Arts (1988-93).

For more on Girish Karnad >>

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He was born Tomas Straussler -- place: Zlin, Czechoslovakia; time: July 3, 1937. His father, a doctor, moved his wife and two sons to Singapore when Tom was just two years old. In 1941, before the Japanese invasion Tom, his brother and his mother were evacuated to India. The senior Straussler stayed behind and was killed in 1946. Martha Strausler married British army officer Kenneth Stoppard. The very British Stoppard was an unlikely husband for a Czech woman with vaguely Jewish links (It's been fairly recent since Stoppard became aware not only that both his parents were Jewish but that many maternal and paternal relatives perished in the Holocaust). Odd or not, Stoppard did marry Martha and before long moved her and her boys to Bristol, England. Tom Straussler became Tom Stoppard, the namesake of a man who, according to his own recently published account about his background" believed with Cecil Rhodes that to be born an Englishman was to have drawn first prize in the lottery of life. . . His Utopia would have been populated by landed gentry, honest yeomen and Gurkhas."

Tom Stoppard left school at seventeen and began his writing career as a journalist. In 1960 he quit full time newspaper work to freelance, writing critical articles, two pseudonymous weekly columns and his first full-length play, A Walk On the Water (produced in 1968 as Enter a Free Man and described by the playwright as a composite of several plays he admired and thus not an original work). His other early playwriting efforts include a one-acter, The Gamblers, which was performed by the University of Bristol drama department in 1965.

He also put in a season (September 1962 -April 1963) as a London drama critic writing reviews and interviews under the by-line, William Boot. This name is the first sign of his enduring penchant for word play and literary allusion. Boot is a name from an Evelyn Waugh novel named Scoop. This name as well as Moon (part of the title of his novel Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon) crop up in other Stoppard works with Boot and Moon variations of the Yiddish schlemiel and schlemazel -- the first being the character who makes things happen, and the latter to whom they happen.

Through the 60s, Stoppard delved into radio and television writing as well as the theater and also had three short stories published in an anthology of stories by new writers. His career-defining work evolved from a one-act play written in 1964, performed two years later at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and then at the Old Vic in London. That play about two minor characters from Hamlet was of course Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It established the twenty-nine-year-old Stoppard as a major success.

As can be readily seen from the chronological list of his plays below, Stoppard was hardly a one-hit wonder. He also kept up his writing credentials in the world of radio, television and film. His most recent and wildly successful screenplay, the 1999 Oscar winner Shakespeare In Love, brought him full circle to his first big hit which was also indebted to the Bard. The film seems to have stirred up a renewed interest in reviving all things Stoppard.

The prolific playwright found time to become engaged in the issue of human rights issues during the 70s, especially in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union about which he wrote numerous newspaper articles. His political concerns were also evident in his work -- i.e. Every Good Boy Deserves a Favor (1977) a play about a political dissident confined to a Soviet mental hospital and accompanied by an orchestral score composed by Andre Previn. Still, he is not considered as a playwright committed to politics; in fact, he freely admits to voting for Margaret Thatcher because he admired her tough attitude to the unions even as he deplored her philistinism. As he explains such seemingly diverse stands, "I have been admirably consistent in my lack of certainty."

As Stoppard's screenplay for Shakespeare In Love, portrayed Shakespeare's evolution as a playwright inspired by his love affair with an actress, Stoppard's earlier stage play (also a successful movie), The Real Thing is an example of real life Stoppardian irony since his affair with that play's leading lady, Felicity Kendal, led to the break-up of his 17-year marriage.

For more Tom Stoppard >>

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David Freeman: Playwright of First Class Man

DAVID FREEMAN
David Freeman is a screenwriter and the author of six books, including the story collection A Hollywood Education; The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock, a memoir about his experience writing a script with the great director; One of Us, a novel of Egypt and England, and most recently It's All True. His play Jesse and the Bandit Queen ran for 200 performances at the Public Theater in New York, won several prizes, and has played around the world. His journalism, reviews, and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

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