It is with heavy heart that I’ll have to make this post. We have decided, with full support of Next Wave Festival and Chinese Museum Melbourne, to postpone Poona until the world goes back to normal. We are one of the lucky productions where it looks like having a production later down the line is a very real probability. At a time where art and expression is more important than ever, I’m thankful for my creative team and my cast for their energy and generosity. Rest assured, Poona will come and save us. It’s just going to take us a little longer than we hoped.
Two weeks ago, while in Sydney and things were shifting all around us, I got to see the dress rehearsal of girl friend written by my good mate Natesha Somasundaram Belvoir Downstairs. It was to be the only run of this gem of a play (for now), on a day when every other show was getting cancelled all around us. Because of this, there was quite a crowd there. It was the first time the actors were running through the entire show with costumes, they were missing the projection, the script was only locked the week before, by all normal rules, this show should not have been in front of such a large audience, but we all felt like we needed to be there. We joked about the fact that this was the last theatre we were going to see for a long time, we just didn’t know how true or for how long that was going to be. It was a hilarious and brilliant piece, I truly hope you’ll all get to see it some day.
Directer Claudia Barrie and playwright Natesha Somasundaram being the cutest at curtain call of girl friend