Sudha Bhuchar Joins Jermyn Street Theatre's Footprints Festival With EVENING CONVERSATIONS

Middle aged, multicultural mother of millennial sons, Sudha Bhuchar lives a "squeezed middle" life in leafy Wimbledon. As she navigates her career, family and returning to India as a Non-Resident Indian, the acclaimed playwright and actor is prompted to investigate her own sense of home and her place in the world.

Evening Conversations is a warm-hearted and engaging extended monologue inspired by Sudha's evening conversations with her sons, as she invites them to 'crack open a cold one' and share their dreams and views on life while she rinses a glass of Prosecco or two. But why do Deep Meaningful Conversations always end in Diversity or Death?

Written and performed by Sudha, the work scrutinises the tendency we have to re-evaluate our lives as we grow older, discusses the complexity of identity and difference through the experiences that we share and takes an affectionate look at the differences of perspective and outlook that divide us from our parents' and our children's generations.

Will her dual heritage (Hindu/Indian and Muslim/Pakistani), mono-lingual, fiercely British sons see their heritage as a place of strength or an unwelcome inheritance?

Evening Conversations is part of Jermyn Street Theatre's Footprints Festival. It is performed alongside the first ever public 'script in hand' showing of Life Laundry, written by Sudha from interviews with Shaheen Khan and her daughters Sophie Khan-Levy and Nyla Levy - a theatre dynasty making their first appearance together on stage in this deeply moving conversation between mothers and daughters.

As a British Asian cultural leader of a certain age, who has created many successes, Sudha finds herself having to begin again and again and revisit her life and take stock. In addition to her presenting Evening Conversations at Jermyn Street Theatre, she is coming full circle back to Tara Theatre (formerly Tara Arts), where she and Shaheen began their creative lives as teenagers, with Final Farewell, which is at the heart of Tara's new Artistic Director Abdul Shayek's debut season. Final Farewell is an audio walk of remembrance and celebration through Wandsworth. Sudha's evolving creative practice takes verbatim testimonies as a place for imaginative creation in all her current work, and in Final Farewell she interviewed people who came forward and wanted to share stories of their personal loss of loved ones during Covid. Through deep listening and this intimate approach to creation, Sudha has crafted 'self-portraits' that are warm, illuminating and revelatory and give voice to the deceased through the window of the words of the bereaved. This co creative relationship involved sharing the work with the interviewees and gaining their blessings to the final public rendition.

Sudha Bhuchar is an acclaimed actor/playwright/founder of Bhuchar Boulevard. As co-founder of Tamasha, with Kristine Landon-Smith, their landmark work includes A Fine Balance and the award-winning musical Fourteen Songs Two Weddings and a Funeral. Other plays include Child of the Divide (Winner Asian media awards 2018), My Name is.... (also adapted for Radio 4) & The House of Bilquis Bibi (Lorca's The House of Bernada Alba transposed to Pakistan). Recent commissions: Touchstone Tales (RevolutonArts/Wellcome Collection) & French like Faiza (Radio3 cowritten with Ilana Navaro). Acting credits include Khandan (Royal court /Birmingham Rep), The Village (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Lions and Tigers (Globe Theatre). TVincludes: Coronation Street, Stella & Noughts and Crosses. Film: Riz Ahmed and Bassam Tariq's Mogul Mowgli, Disney's Mary Poppins Returns, Ben Wheatley's Happy New Year Colin Burstead and Orlando von Einsiedel's upcoming Into Dust. Sudha was a finalist for BBC Radio 4's Audio drama awards (2019) for My Son the Doctor (co- written with Saleyha Ahsan) and was awarded Tongues on Fire's Flame Award (2018) & Eastern Eye's ACTA award (2019) for her significant contribution to the Arts. As dramaturg, Sudha recently worked with Nyla Levy on Does my Bomb Look Big in This? and Tuyen Do on Summer Rolls. Sudha is the writer of Final Farewell (Tara Arts July 21), a reflective and collaborative piece honouring the losses people have experienced during Covid.

Kristine Landon-Smith is of mixed heritage born to an Indian mother and Australian father. Kristine began her career as an actress but moved into directing and teaching in the early years of her professional life. She co-founded Tamasha Theatre in 1989 and as Co - Artistic Director directed all but one of the company's shows. Her 1996 production, East is East was nominated for an Olivier award and her original production of Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral won the Barclays Theatre Award for Best New Musical. Kristine's freelance credits include directing with The Royal Court Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Palace Theatre Westcliff, Nitro, Yellow Earth Theatre and The Royal Danish Theatre, where she directed the Con:FUSIONS workshop in 2005, aimed at developing cultural diversity in Scandinavian theatre. Her most recent works were Summer Rolls by Tuyen Do (Park Theatre and Bristol Old Vic 2019), The Orchestra by Jean Annouilh (Clapham Omnibus. 2019), Curry Kings of Parramatta (Riverside Theatres, Sydney 2019) and The Serpents Teeth Kings Cross Theatre, Sydney 2018). Kristine is currently Head of Acting at Drama Studio, London

Evening Conversations is part of Jermyn Street Theatre's Footsteps Festival and is dedicated to the memory of Sudha's mentor and friend Philip Osment.

https://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/

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