In these times of the lockdown, artistes and content creators have been coming up with unique ideas to keep audiences entertained at home. Now it's the turn of a virtual play, Lockdown Love, which has been directed by Sheena Khalid and hosted by Roshan Abbas. Touted as being India's first virtual play, it will be performed live on the Zoom app.
Lockdown Love features Priyanshu Painyuli and Shriya Pilgaonkar in the lead along with Tanmay Danania, Ashwin Mushran, Kira Narayanan and director Khalid herself. Abbas will be doubling up as tech director.
Adapted from Jonathan Rand’s Check Please, the play showcases a series of first dates which go wrong. The guy and girl sit several tables away from each other at a restaurant and date one person after another until they finally bump into each other. But in this adaption, the restaurant is replaced by online dating sites.
Talking about the play, Painyuli said, "This was the first of its kind live play to be performed virtually for an audience on Zoom. It is the story of a guy played by me, and a girl played by Shriya, who go on different online dates with random weird people, till they accidentally log into a window where they meet each other and connect. It's about how in these difficult times one keeps looking and hoping to find love. The idea is to make it live for the audience and do more shows with help from video facilities, to give people a new format of entertainment in these difficult times."
"Every actor performs from their respective home, even in rehearsals. The tech support and direction was done through Zoom video chats. Tess Joseph did a fantastic casting on this one and I had a great time working on this. The first show was on April 12 and we are figuring out when to do the next one. We are hoping to do one every weekend," the actor added.
Painyuli is awaiting the release of his first international film, Extraction starring Chris Hemsworth in the lead.