Breaking new ground came naturally to veteran stage manager, Antonia Collins, who passed away in the UK last month. Having had the pleasure of interviewing her while she worked in Mumbai, here’s my salute to a woman who owned the stage from behind the scenes
Antonia Collins during rehearsals at NCPA. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar
Let's have some chai, shall we?” Antonia Collins had us at the chai request. She was warm, full of beans and an interviewer’s delight, thanks to the anecdotes and episodic footnotes that she would insist on sharing after every question. Back in early March, as part of a plan for the Women’s Day special for The Guide section, I had the opportunity of interviewing this British professional, along with her younger colleague, Avafrin Mistry. Both stage managers were part of Sir Tom Stoppard’s hit production, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour that was doing its second run of shows in the city.
On the day that I met them, I learnt that rehearsals were cancelled as the play’s director Bruce Guthrie, who is also the head of theatre at NCPA, was unwell. So I had some extra quality time, which in hindsight was a blessing.
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The crackling chemistry between them was a sight to behold, the kind where one completes the other’s sentences. I couldn’t wait to get back to my desk and write this one down. In between listening to her speak about her craft as a senior stage manager with an Indian cast, and enjoying the banter between Collins and Mistry, I was also keen to hear about her mantras, and her processes. The ballsy Leicester girl told me that her profession was always her “vocation”. In her mid-teens, she entered a theatre for the first time, and by the time she was 17, she was off to drama school to study stage management. It must have been tough for Collins in the cut-throat world of theatre in England.
Collins and Mistry came together last year when this eponymous production by Guthrie was staged in India for the first time. Throughout the interview, it was evident that Collins’ illustrious CV was just one part of the person. She was inarguably one of the best in the business, having made a mark as a professional stage manager as well as a trainer and had learned hard and well from those early days when the UK was not ready for women stage managers. “In the early ’90s, when I was 23, I was the boss, and this guy in the theatre remarked, “You cannot be in charge,” her guffaw an indicator of what must have ensued. Soon, I was able to figure out the magnitude of their tasks for a production, especially one like ‘Every Good Boy…’ where stage design and sound were of epic proportions, not to forget the syncing with the live orchestra that was always on stage.
Interestingly, and refreshingly for me, she called a spade a spade. She regaled us with rehearsal-day encounters related to “India Time”. The fine art of time-wasting that can happen across theatre and film prep was beautifully elucidated by her, as she compared the strict, by-the-clock routines back home in the UK. “I realised that the biggest problem is if chai is not served. In the UK and US, actors are rarely fed—they either buy lunch or go to a coffee shop. Despite being warned, there was a day when the chai was missing. It didn’t go down well,” she laughed.
Collins revealed the great lengths that she and Mistry went to ensure that people didn’t spend an unnecessarily long time for daily rehearsals. In her short time in the city, she understood that people had long commutes and respected that scenario. Time-stickler, she might have been but she knew that people had a life and family to return to. How many of our city folk in similar roles genuinely attempt to engineer such routines, I wondered.
Apart from working for productions in the UK, the US and Asia, and being a celebrated lecturer on stage management, Collins was hailed for her training programme that mentored aspiring women stage managers from across the globe. She was passionate and proud of this effort; her eyes lit up when talk veered to this part—about encouraging more women to take up the profession. “It is my overarching mission in life to enable this.” Her advice was simple but rock solid–“Be happy to play second fiddle; be happy around people and respond to responsibilities. It is a gruelling profession but at the end of it, to hear the audience applaud, sigh and emote is special.”
When it was time to take their leave, she aptly summed up her life and work with a quote by Thelma Holt, a famous UK-based producer: ‘A good stage manager needs the skin of a rhinoceros and a degree in child psychology.’ Collins’ dream project was to create a West End show: “If I could call one show, it would be Rent.” I’m pretty sure the heavens will be treated to the epic rock musical by this rockstar.
mid-day’s Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city’s sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana
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