Old Globe Theatre Presents RAFTA, RAFTA, 3/24

Executive Producer Lou Spisto today announced the complete cast and creative team for Ayub Khan-Din's Olivier Award-winning comedy, Rafta, Rafta..., based on All in Good Time by Bill Naughton. Directed by Jonathan Silverstein, Rafta, Rafta... will run in the Old Globe Theatre March 19 - April 24. Preview performances run March 19 - March 23. Opening night is March 24 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Winner of the 2008 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy for its acclaimed run at The National Theatre in London and a hit with critics and audiences in New York, Rafta, Rafta... takes a hilarious look at the generational divide on sex and marriage within a close-knit Indian family living in England. Following their wedding, two newlyweds find that starting their life together under the groom's family's roof is no honeymoon. With warmth and humor, this British comedy examines what happens when a young couple must choose between saving money or their marriage.

The cast of Rafta, Rafta... features Shalin Agarwal (Etash Tailor), Ranjit Chowdhry (Eeshwar Dutt), Geeta Citygirl Chopra (Lopa Dutt), Amir Darvish (Jivaj Bhatt), Nasser Faris (Laxman Patel), Ariya Ghahramani (Jai Dutt), Mahira Kakkar (Vina Patel), Caralyn Kozlowski (Molly Bhatt), Gita Reddy (Lata Patel) and Rachid Sabitri (Atul Dutt).

The creative team includes Alexander Dodge (Scenic Design), Christal Weatherly (Costume Design), Lap Chi Chu (Lighting Design), Paul Peterson (Sound Design), Gillian Lane-Plescia (Dialect Coach), Reetu Patel (Movement Consultant), Mark Danisovszky (Music Consultant) and Diana Moser (Stage Manager).

Playwright Ayub Khan-Din was born in 1961 and grew up in Salford, Manchester. After leaving school he worked briefly as a hairdresser before enrolling in drama school, where he wrote his first stage play, East is East (1997), for Tamasha, a theater company in London. An autobiographical story of a mixed-race family growing up in an overcrowded terraced house in a white, working-class area of Salford in the early 1970s, it was first staged at The Royal Court Theatre in London and subsequently adapted (by himself) into a highly successful feature film. His second play, Last Dance at Dum Dum (1999), concerns the septuagenarian members of the dwindling Anglo-Indian community in Calcutta, still clinging tightly to their old imperial past. Notes on Falling Leaves (2004) was first performed at The Royal Court Theatre, and Rafta, Rafta... (2007), a comic adaptation of Bill Naughton's 1960s story All in Good Time, won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2008. His new film, West is West (a follow-up to East is East), will open soon and the film version of Rafta, Rafta... will follow in June. He recently delivered his commissioned play, Fauzi, based on Marlow's Doctor Faustus, to Lincoln Center Theater. Khan-Din's latest play, All the Way Home, will premiere in Manchester, England, and he is currently working on a musical for the Royal National Theatre called Bunty Berman Presents.. Khan-Din also works as an actor and has appeared in many films including My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.

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