Rajaram is making his directorial debut with Canadian Stage’s production of As You Like It, but he’s a multifaceted artist with a long career in acting
As he was getting ready to direct Canadian Stage’s production of the beloved Shakespearean pastoral comedy, Anand Rajaram had a brainwave. He arrived at a workshop for the production wearing a costume that made it appear he was riding a giant turkey. He finished the look with
When he started directing rehearsals for the play – part of Toronto’s Dream in High Park series this summer – he asked Roxanne Ignatius, one of the production designers, to turn the turkey into a peacock. He turned up in it regularly. Once, he added a fanfare to his entrance.Rajaram is making his debut as a director with this production, but he’s a multifaceted artist with a long career in acting.
His parents were not keen on his budding artistic interests, however. They said no to pursuits such as photography and music, even studying French.Rajaram followed his parents’ wishes until one day when he scored 102 per cent on a quiz. “They were really upset,” he says, and they were concerned that he would starve as a struggling artist, especially since they did not have any connections in the artistic world. As a result, Rajaram neverthe many times he did struggle. Instead he hustled hard and found whatever job he could, veering into related art forms such as puppetry, mime, writing and directing plays.
More than 1,000 submissions came in. He then asked the applicants to put together a 90-second tape of them telling a joke or story and demonstrating some musical ability. That whittled the applicants down to 400, which got further trimmed down to 137 actors called in for auditions.
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