Upstage was a 3-day theatre festival hosted by the Performing Art Society and Department of English of St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore. Theatre geeks flocked to Loyola hall, where on February 27th, 28th and 29th, colleges from all over the city competed in 6 events. As a complete newcomer to the world of drama, I had no idea what to expect when my college’s theatre group signed up for 3 of the major events.

As soon as our theatre group got wind of the theatre fest, we set into action, picking appropriate versions of three plays to perform. I was assigned the role of light tech for our college’s adaptation of Girish Karnad’s play Hayavadana. I’d never heard of this play before, but over the course of the two weeks we practised it over and over and by the end of it I had every line of dialogue committed to memory. I was comfortable working production and doing most of my work behind the scenes- I even helped assist the light tech for our other short adaptation- Sartre’s No Exit. Having spent more time than I’d like to admit cooped up in my room scrolling through Reddit, sitting in a small, dark room and pressing buttons was right up my alley.

While Hayavadana and No Exit were our entries for the two events with the longest time slots- 40 minutes and 25 minutes respectively, the third event we’d signed up for was called Scenematic, and it was a musical event. This was the one that intrigued me the most- as unaware as I may have been about the world of theatre, I sure knew more than my fair share of musicals. I’d driven my neighbours up the wall with my renditions of Hamilton and Hairspray in the shower. There was no question about the musical we were going to perform- with an all-girls team, it had to be a number from Chicago. While the other girls from our group went on chattering excitedly about the roles they wanted to audition for in Karnad’s and Sartre’s plays, I hoped I’d land a role in Chicago. And I did- Annie Young, one of the inmates of Cook County Jail.

And so began hours and hours of gruelling practice. Getting into our characters, learning our lines and choreographing the entire number ourselves was no easy task. However, despite the sweat dripping down our brows and pooling under our arms, we all had the same glint in our eyes- we’d never performed a musical before and we were determined to win.

On the 27th, we made our way to St Joseph’s in a huge SUV, the 12 of us packed in like sardines. When we got there, we registered and were shown to our green rooms. After a lot of haphazard draping, tripping over fabric and a whole lot of face paint, the actors were in their costumes. I hurried up to the light room and waited for the emcee to announce our act. Apart from a few snags in the timing of the dialogue and the lighting, the act went perfectly. Every joke landed and the audience seemed completely engaged during the entire 40-minute time slot. We received a roaring applause and returned home, exhausted but excited for round 2.

Our performance of No Exit was, admittedly, a little lacklustre- we had several technical difficulties with the mics which led to the dialogues not being heard at all. The audience clapped politely at the end of our act, but we didn’t let this slow us down. The next day was our final performance and we were all determined to make it our best.

Finally, the day of reckoning came. On the 29th, the smallest group of stagehands and actors showed up to college early in the morning in rickety autos and rapidos, yawning as we all took our places on the basketball court to begin our practice of the Cell Block Tango. Later in the afternoon, we all set off to St. Joseph’s for the third and final time. We got to our green room and hurriedly put on our makeup, the tension in the air palpable. Our mentor Ms Naureen showed up just before we were to go on stage and we all huddled in for a prayer. Although an atheist myself, I secretly prayed to any higher power that would listen to let our performance go smoothly. The buzzer sounded signalling our turn to get on stage and my heart leapt into my throat.

Whatever higher being or cosmic energy I prayed to must have been feeling quite generous that day because it was one of the best performances out group had ever put up. As soon as the curtains were raised, the audience was captivated. We didn’t miss a single beat, we were in character and in tune. Learning from our technical mishaps over the previous two days, we’d decided to ditch the lapel mics and stick with floor mics, which proved to be genius because the audience caught even the slightest murmurs of witty dialogue and sniggered. As we ended, out of breath and with beads on sweat on our forehead, we got a standing ovation from the crowd, including the female judge in the first row.

We brought home several accolades that day. Hayavadana won the best adaptation, Chicago won first place in Scenematic, our teammate Parna won Best Supporting Actress, and Daya who played kali got a special mention for her acting. However, the best things to come out of the whole experience were the validation out little theatre group got, and the bonds that we built with each other. We’re just a bunch of theatre geeks after all, from science, commerce and arts background, connected by our passion for the performing arts. We trusted each other, believed in our abilities and never gave up on one another.

Boy, am I lucky to call these girls my partners in crime.