- Roshani Abbey of West End’s ‘Hamilton’ on her new starring role and more
Theatre is a calling, regardless of whether you practise theatre as an amateur or a professional. It is a gruelling craft that calls for long hours, minute attention to detail, and unfailing commitment on the part of everyone involved, from actors to directors to producers to the many more people who each play an integral role in bringing a production to life.
Locally, Lankan theatre is incredibly vibrant, diverse, and talented, and our theatre practitioners and actors are also beginning to make names for themselves internationally. A few months ago saw a Lankan actor on London’s West End winning the coveted Olivier Award for Best Actor and this month saw another Lankan actor, Roshani Abbey, take to the West End stage as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds in the West End production of the hit musical ‘Hamilton: An American Musical’.
‘Hamilton,’ as it is more popularly known, is a sung-and-rapped-through musical conceptualised by composer Lin-Manuel Miranda that tells the story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. The show draws heavily from hip hop, as well as R&B, pop, soul, and traditional-style show tunes and casts non-white actors as the Founding Fathers of the United States and other historical figures. Miranda has previously described ‘Hamilton’ as a musical about “America then, as told by America now”.
Roshani’s role as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds (she plays two characters) is one she has coveted and was thrilled to finally get. To learn more about her journey Brunch caught up with Roshani in between performances (and rehearsals).
Roshani is a study in cosmopolitanism – with Sri Lankan parents, she was born and lived in the US till she was nine before moving to Sri Lanka, where she studied till the age of 18, following which she moved on to university in London.
She has been on stage as long as she can remember, having started ballet when she was just two, and throughout her life developed and maintained a love of theatre. In her time in Sri Lanka, she did lots of work with The Workshop Players, Tracy Holsinger and Mary Anne David as well as through the British School in Colombo, which was one of the schools she studied at.
Playing a role on London’s West End
Roshani’s first performance as Peggy/Maria took place on 21 June, and looking back, she shared that taking to the stage was an intensely happy moment for her: “I’ve been feeling great about it, really. It’s been a dream show for me for quite a while now and it was so much fun to do. The cast, the crew, and everyone in the building has been super nice.”
Giving us a little more insight into her role of Peggy/Maria, Roshani explained that in the first half of ‘Hamilton,’ she plays Peggy and then in the second half she plays the role of Maria – Peggy Schuyler was Hamilton’s sister-in-law and Maria Reynolds was his mistress.
Getting to this point of being a part of the musical experience that is ‘Hamilton’ is one that she’s worked very hard for, auditioning since 2019 for each yearly production contract of the musical.
She initially auditioned for all three of Hamilton’s sisters – Eliza (who would become Hamilton’s wife), Peggy, and Angelica. “I think I started auditioning around nine months before the contract started, around November last year,” Roshani recalled, “but ensemble auditions had started even before that.”
Theatre productions on London’s West End (one of theatre’s biggest global hubs) work quite differently from theatre productions in Sri Lanka, and so, we asked Roshani what it’s like being part of a West End production.
While Sri Lankan productions typically see a few weeks to months of moderate to intense rehearsals ahead of three to seven days of evening performances, theatre productions on the West End are usually year-long, and actors, in general, are contracted for 12 months of performance, which roughly works out to eight shows a week (six evening shows and two afternoon shows).
Before performances start, there are four to six weeks of full-time rehearsals, followed by about a week-and-a-half of technical rehearsals, and over the course of a production, rehearsals continue every day.
“It’s more than a full-time job when you’re in rehearsals and performances,” Roshani explained. “You are contracted to 40 hours a week, which is the amount of time you need to do the shows plus the other extras.”
Another significant way the West End differs from local theatre is understudy culture – an understudy is a person who learns another’s role in order to be able to act at short notice in their absence – and in local theatre, understudies aren’t always given a lot of thought; you have the actor playing the role, and to a large extent, that’s it. If something were to happen to that actor before or during the show, it would be nothing short of a disaster.
On the West End, and especially with musicals, each role has at least one understudy to avoid potential disaster and also to allow for things like holidays and sick leave for the actors, and of course, to account for emergencies.
In the case of ‘Hamilton,’ there are four sets of actors on the roster to ensure each role for each performance. Roshani is third understudy for the role of Eliza Schuyler, Hamilton’s wife, and this includes all the work of playing that role, from lines to choreography to costume, so that she can take on the role at a moment’s notice if required.
Getting into character
The biggest responsibility of any actor is to do their role justice, and for Roshani, who is playing a role that has been produced for many years and portrayed by many skilled actresses, there are numerous little things she does to get into character.
Her process does change depending on the show and the character and what happens just before her character goes on stage, but a huge part of getting into character is the process of getting ready.
“Putting on makeup and getting into costume is something I like to do with enough time. We do our makeup ourselves, so it’s important to figure out how much time you need to get ready and work that in. Before getting dressed, I play some music to keep my energy up in the dressing room. Before my character goes on, it really depends on the show. With ‘Hamilton,’ before the Schuyler sisters, Peggy, Eliza, and Angelica go on, the three of us say some affirmations. It was the idea of the girl playing Eliza Schuyler. We say affirmations three times and do a little dance in the wings before we have to run on stage.”
What about the pressure of living up to the actresses who have played the role before her? Roshani shared that seeing other people having played the role you’re playing did have an effect on how you viewed the character, but through the rehearsal process and becoming familiar with playing the character herself, she tended to put other interpretations of a character out of her head and focus on finding her own interpretation of it.
“Just to initially find my iteration of the character, I don’t mind watching other people. I like to see it first and then put it out of my mind. The more we watch something, the more we do take from it, consciously or not,” Roshani said, speaking of how much other actors who have played the same role can influence an actor, “but the beauty of these characters and these shows is that there are so many ways of doing it right, which is something the directing team tells us and it is nice to find these different ways.”
The nitty-gritties of London theatre
With the London theatre scene being so different from our own, we asked Roshani what it’s like living and working in that world – in some ways, it’s a lot like ours, since when you do more shows, you meet more people from different casts, form connections, and get to know other people in the industry.
“Someone in one cast knows someone from another cast and then you end up in the same place at the same time. It’s a massive industry but it almost feels small sometimes,” Roshani shared.
One way London theatre greatly differs though is through theatre schools. Roshani herself followed a course at one of these theatre schools and this was partly because of the integral role theatre schools play when it comes to getting roles.
“With London theatre, you need an agent – someone who will get you auditions; the agent has the contacts with casting directors who employ them to find people to bring in lots of actors who might be good for the part they’re looking to cast. It doesn’t make too much of a difference if you know a lot of actors; what you need is relationships with casting directors, which is where agents come in. The easiest way to get an agent is to do a course.”
Getting an agent without having been to a theatre course can be quite a struggle and this is one problem Roshani has with the theatre industry in the UK. Theatre schools have established relationships with agents and invite them for annual showcases where agents can pick actors they would like to represent, which makes it that much harder for actors who haven’t pursued theatre courses to get representation.
Of course, there are other factors that come into it, like what kind of actor agents are looking to represent (they may be looking for diversity or for more of a specific type of actor because of demand for those roles, for example), but by and large, Roshani explained that if you haven’t done a theatre course, it is a much bigger struggle finding an agent, and by extension, getting roles.
“It’s not as straightforward as ‘you get an agent if you’re good’,” Roshani said, noting that there were open casting calls for productions where anyone could audition but these were more of a rarity than the norm and oftentimes a box that needed to be ticked in order to meet requirements to stage a production.
That said, the London theatre scene is unbelievably vibrant and there is always something going on, both from the perspective of something to see as a viewer and something to so as an actor, from concerts on Sunday to being part of workshopping a play (being part of a play in its developmental stages to help writers and producers get the production, story, and characters right).
Even with workshops actors get paid and Roshani shared that she hoped that this culture of paying its actors substantially was something Sri Lankan theatre could develop, adding that she hoped to return to Colombo one day and work towards this.
Outside of theatre
Roshani is an unusual example of someone in theatre, because, in addition to her studies in theatre, she also has a degree in mathematics, studying both mathematics and theatre at university.
“Growing up, it was always assumed that I would be a dancer, and then, in theatre,” she shared. “Even in Sri Lanka, I went to classes with everyone and I auditioned for courses in the UK, but they were very expensive. When I got to my A/Ls, my mum who has always been very supportive said, ‘look, because of the nature of the industry (short contracts), you won’t always be in work, so maybe get something to help you earn some other way,’ and I thought, why not? I really like mathematics and the plan was always to do something in theatre.”
Her somewhat strange choice of subjects did draw comment, with many people wondering why she didn’t pursue one or the other, but, today, Roshani does a lot of programming, and also teaches data science courses, which provide valuable additional income, because even in the UK, theatre doesn’t always pay well.
Concluding our chat, we asked Roshani what advice she would impart to other aspiring actors. “Never stop learning is one thing that immediately comes to mind,” she said, adding that in the Sri Lankan context especially, it was important to pay attention to what was happening outside the English language theatre community. “There’s so much we can learn from each other in terms of becoming professional actors.”
Roshani also stressed the importance of making use of the different resources available to actors, especially in this day and age, with so much valuable information online and most of it free. “You can learn so much without having to go to courses. Keep learning and take risks. Go for what you want and challenge yourself.”
