Sumana Chatterjee – Feedback on Level 1 Workshop (2023/1)
Email – chatterjeesumana@hotmail.com
Since my high school days, I have been nurturing an intense fondness for the craft of acting in my mind, to be precise acting on stage. Back in Kolkata during my college and university days, I used to be a part of a theatre group that gave me an immense pleasure of living my life to its fullest. One fine morning I realised that those golden days are over as I had to enter the corporate rat race and failed to dedicate any time and energy for theatre. Life happened! My last stage show took place in February 2015.
In the past 8 years I came across a few theatre groups in Mumbai and Bangalore, in a few of them again I couldn’t commit because of my personal life happenings and rest of them sucked (pardon my language!) big time. This year when I came to know about Vishal Nayer’s Acting Workshop I started doing my own research in terms of who he is, what he does etc. After talking to my friend Ujani, who did his workshop recently, I gained more confidence. Long story short, finally I joined his Level 1 acting workshop.
Every week after managing 5 days of office and a less than 2-year-old son, I used to look forward to the weekend (it was a 6-weekend workshop) for unwinding, to learn and unlearn, to do the thing which I enjoy doing the most. We learnt different technicalities of acting on stage and on screen as well – starting from characterization to improvisation, script writing to pantomiming, working with voice to setting up stage and lights we had got clarity on innumerable things related to acting. I will not talk about the topics in here, just want to mention the most important thing what we all learnt – “BEING FOOLISH”. I cannot explain the usefulness of “if you are trying to do something like acting, breaking your inhibition is the first thing you should learn.”
Now coming back to the approach of the workshop and the mentor itself.
While doing my own research before joining the workshop, I have watched a few videos/clippings of him which gave me a clear idea about how good Vishal is as an actor. But everyone cannot be a good teacher at the same time. I have not met “Baba” (Late Ratan Thakore Grant), but I’m pretty sure that he would have been the happiest person seeing Vishal bearing the torch of his knowledge and wisdom and sharing the same with us. Vishal possesses a few important things which many people lack nowadays.
Honest and passionate – he explains things both theoretically and hands on. He always tries to reflect around what he taught, if he missed anything, if anything went over the top, if we were comfortable while doing any kind of acting related exercise – this shows his immense honesty, respect and irresistible passion not only towards acting but also towards teaching. He is always open to taking questions, never gets irritated explaining the same thing thousand times, always helps you coming out of your comfort zone and explore yourself… makes you believe in the magic we all have within us!
• Powerful – he has an outstanding quality of grabbing your attention and focus on what he is saying, making you believe in his MAGIC
His experience from his work, the workshops he himself attended in the past and the wise people he had come across, enriched him so much that it can be seen very profoundly while he talks about something. Spreading across what you learnt from your mentors is very important, not everyone can do it so easily or rather, have the willingness to do so.
I am so glad that I chose to join this workshop, so happy that I have got a mentor who has become a friend, a kind and beautiful soul who is always ready to help you believe in your strength and acknowledge your weaknesses, and always asks you to HAVE FUN before applying any complex technicalities, before everything else. I am sure this has helped all of us to grow and will push us to always go for an extra mile in life!
THANK YOU, Vishal
Take LOVE
Also, a big shout out to my sweetest ever batchmates without whom this workshop wouldn’t have been so much fun!