Poor Box Productions' latest presentation, Love Is In The Air, is a cabaret-style musical featuring Broadway classics, Sinatra's best and even an Amy Winehouse track with a twist
Poor Box productions' latest presentation, Love Is In The Air, is a cabaret-style musical featuring Broadway classics, Sinatra's best and even an Amy Winehouse track with a twist
"Musicals are very difficult to pull off, simply because you need a huge cast that can act, sing, dance and spare a lot of time for rehearsals. They are also an expensive affair and because of the Bollywood tradition a lot of our stage musicals include lip syncs and, for me, that's no way to do a musical," says Kaizaad Kotwal, of Poor Box Productions, as he lists out reasons why his latest production -- Love Is In The Air -- is a stripped-down version of what he would really like to create. Faced with these challenges but keen to work on a musical, Kaizaad and his co-director Vishal Asrani decided to work out a cabaret-style performance.
Vishal Asrani and Sarosh Nanavaty rehearse for the play.
Pic/Sayed Sameer Abedi
Kaizaad and Vishal consider the cabaret, with its solos, duets and trios, a more manageable format that works in an intimate setting like The Comedy Store. For Kaizaad, Love Is In The Air is also a way of tipping his hat to a bygone era when cabarets were popular in Mumbai. "Cabarets were a very popular form of entertainment that disappeared all of a sudden. We thought it would be nice to revive the format," says Kaizaad.
So, when the programming team at The Comedy Store approached Kaizaad for a special show for Valentine's Day, he saw an opportunity to fulfil a long-standing dream -- to produce a musical. Love was the obvious choice as the theme. "We explore love in every sense you can think of -- love for money, love for lust, love for fun, love for love, love of hatred and so on. It's beautifully linked through a commentary. It's not just someone standing on the stage and singing but the songs have been dramatised," explains Vishal.
The playlist for the evening includes some familiar and some unexpected numbers. "There are traditional Broadway songs, an interesting interpretation of Sinatra's New York, New York, an Amy Winehouse number in a way you've never thought of before, Celine Dion and Whitney Houston love ballets, ABBA tracks, and even a couple of Hindi songs," adds Kaizaad, who has also roped in the award-winning choreographer Longinus Fernandes to choreograph five songs. Get your buddies together for this one. It's not often you get to sing-along to Sinatra's New York New York.
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On: March 13, 8.30 pm at The Comedy Store at Palladium Mall, Phoenix Mills, Lower Parel.
Call: 43485000
Entry: Rs 400
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