Under commission
We are delighted to profile four writers currently under commission by Tamasha, all of whom came to us through our new writing course. You can find out more about these works-in-progress at the Propeller blog.
Zindabad
by Avaes Mohammad, participant in Tamasha New Writing 2006
Zahir endeavours, quite simply, to make money by any means necessary. Where his father’s hands were rubbed flat working for his peers, Zahir’s hands remain lined with ambition so deep that he too becomes willing to exploit his own people. Avaes’s poignant play charts the rise of a second generation immigrant in Lancashire’s tight Pakistani community, for whom the burden of their parents’ fate still weights heavy on their shoulders.
Avaes is an established playwright, poet and performer. In 2005 he was recipient of the Amnesty International Media Award for his poem Bhopal, broadcast as part of the BBC’s commemoration of the Bhopal gas disaster. Works for theatre have included In God We Trust and Shadow Companion. He has also written Bora Bistrah for Radio 3, as well as the BBC co-produced short film Take It Slow.
Blood
by Em Hussain, participant in Tamasha New Writing 2006 and writer of Sweet Cider
A tale of love, lust and betrayal set in the Pakistani community of northern England, based on Lorca’s tragedy Blood Wedding. Em Hussain first explored the fallout from fractured family ties in her debut play for Tamasha, Sweet Cider. In Blood, she digs deeper into the heart of those urban lives inextricably linked to rural ties that have taken root in the soil of contemporary Britain.
Em has worked extensively as a workshop practitioner specialising in pupil referral units. As a spoken word artist, she has performed nationally and internationally and toured with the Benjamin Zephaniah Band. As well as having a third research commission with Tamasha, she is also a writer in development with Kali Theatre and Half Moon Young People’s Theatre and has a pending attachment with the Royal Court Theatre. She is currently writing her first feature film set in Bristol.
Snookered
by Ishy Din, participant in Tamasha New Writing 2008
It is the sixth anniversary of T’s death. His four friends meet up in their local snooker hall, as they do every year, to celebrate T’s life. But as they excavate the past and measure their own lives against T’s, things threaten to explode. Secrets are revealed and allegiances shift as quickly as the drinks are downed. Can they put to rest the guilt they feel over T’s untimely death? And will their friendship survive the final betrayal?
Ishy Din has a great sense of comedy and Snookered is peppered with the wonderful Punjabi-English urban patois that is developing in northern towns.
Lotus Beauty
by Satinder Chohan, participant in Tamasha New Writing 2007
Set in a London beauty salon, we eavesdrop on the lives of the clients and therapists where their extraordinary worlds are revealed. Truth is stranger than fiction, and in this play, inspired by verbatim research, secrets, lies, murder and suicide are all unearthed as bikini lines are waxed and hair dyes applied. Beauty hurts and so does life.
Satinder has worked extensively in journalism, publishing, documentary research and new media, often around South Asian issues. She began developing her first play Zameen with Kali Theatre Company, who produced the play at Soho Theatre. She was one of the emerging writers resident at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, before receiving a grant from the Arts Council to develop Zameen in both India and the UK. In 2008, Zameen embarked on a national tour. She is currently developing Kabaddi-Kabaddi-Kabaddi with Pursued by a Bear and writing a feature film set in her hometown of Southall. She is one of five writers on attachment at Hampstead Theatre.