Yes we are turning 3!! Its an unimaginably big occasion for us – Three years of rebelz, three years of entertaining namma chennai makkals, three years of madness,three years of stage performances,three years of ..phew!!.. I am mighty excited.

I do know we are more or less similar to toddlers and we have gone through the entire process which a baby grows thru – picking his heads up, rolling over, playing while on his tummy, sitting up, crawling, standing up, and then walking. Yes we are walking though we have not fully perfected it…

These three years have given us memories,memories which were joyous,good,bad & some outright ugly too but we have no complaints. We have had a ball of a time [or rather a whale of a time keeping in tune with our upcoming production :-) ] and have enjoyed every moment of this ride.

How do we define Rebelz? It’s a pretty tough question,after long serious thought I could only plagiarize the wachowski brothers – Rebelz is not about entertainment nor is it about theatre or stage or kala-seva. It’s more than that. It’s an idea. An idea that a bunch of people with passion towards extraordinary things can carry it forward and push it to a different level, without affecting their normal lives. Read normal as the life which gives them bread, butter and vadacurry.

Everyday in our workplaces we come across men & women who have extraordinary talents. Be it singing, sketching, dancing and what not. When we realize that these talents are going to die with the individuals without being polished, without being exhibited to a wider audience…sigh.. It’s painful to say the least.

Frankly rebelz was started with such selfish motives. One wanted to write and hear the applauds of the audience for his lines, one wanted to act and entertain live audience,  one wanted to give life to mundane things on stage, one wanted to compose music…and everyone wanted to reach out to people.

In this crazy quest to excel and stand out of the crowd, we have come across people who have taught us things which any school, varsity or corporate workplace can never teach. One of the greatest lessons was -throw out your egos!

Yes performers [especially if you are a performer with a start up theatre group] cannot have egos,that is easier said than done. Our attempt to publicize our first show was distributing pamphlets at a shopping mall. Aaah..that was the first chapter,imagine white collar workers distributing pamphlets and teeny boppers refusing to get that..and some getting the pamphlet and throwing it off as they moved 2 feet away without giving a glance. At the end of the day there was this megalomaniac in us seething with anger what with our egos getting a thrashing. There were many more chapters & lessons as we finally staged our first show with 2-3 postponements and a few hiccups. As the title goes…theatre was indeed a great leveller.

Post the first performance if at all we had any pain every ounce of it was washed away with the applauds, the laughs and the appreciations. We did get brickbats too, but luckily we were quick learners[yeah a typical resume keyword] we realized pretty soon the ones who gave us brickbats were not cynics, they are people who want us to do well..want us to entertain them without blemishes.

The second greatest lesson we learnt was or rather a lesson we are still learning – don’t take criticisms personally. For every creator his creation is his child, however mediocre or bad it is. Its really tough for us to disconnect ourselves from the play which we have created with blood & sweat[yeah we had one of our actors meeting with an accident during the 2nd production so blood part was not too much :-) ] and leaving it for public criticism.

Looks like this is going to be the toughest step to climb for the 3 year old toddlers.

Meanwhile we are happy to offer our next production “Scurvy Pirates & the Malabar Chest”, keep checking this blog as well as www.rebelz.in for more updates.