Congratulations Kaveri!
It’s Sep 2015. We are holding auditions for our upcoming show Dance Like a Man. Among the auditionees is this beautiful young woman who is an accomplished dancer but has very little theatre experience. We don’t offer her a role immediately. So she leaves.
The auditions end in a couple of hours. The director of the play, Sindu Singh and I go over all the auditionees again. We decide that the auditions that day had thrown up enough talent that we could split the roles of Jairaj and Ratna and not have the same actor play two roles. And then and we both agree that this young woman was the perfect fit for the role of Young Ratna, a Bharatanatyam dancer herself.
But she’s gone. I call her. By then she is already back home which is quite far away. What to do? We want to finalize our cast that very day. So we tell her to meet us at a Starbucks in Dublin. She would drive there and we would drive there and we’d get her audition done before sundown.
She does her Callbacks right there in the parking lot outside Starbucks. We cast her as “Young Ratna” and come December, she gives a memorable performance.
From left to right: Sindu Singh, Kaveri Seth, Basab Pradhan
Many years later, that woman, Kaveri Seth, is now in a feature film called Gulmohar, in a major role alongside Sharmila Tagore and Manoj Bajpai. I saw the film yesterday, and it is outstanding - a family drama set in Delhi a la Monsoon Wedding, but without the gritty parts. Kaveri has a major role in it and is superb. I couldn’t be happier. Go watch the film on Hotstar!
Kaveri Seth in the trailer for DANCE LIKE A MAN
After Dance Like a Man, Kaveri did many other things with BADCo. Costume design, Lights design even photography. She has a fine eye for what looks good. And then in 2018 she played the role of Jyoti in our production of Kanyadaan. It was a challenging role, and she gave it her all. A superlative performance! We always knew she was destined for big things. Gulmohar is just the beginning.
Kaveri, from all of us at BADCo, bahut bahut badhaiyaan! Hope you get all the success you deserve!
- Basab Pradhan
Kaveri Seth in the trailer for KANYADAAN