Castle

Nakul Bhalla

Nakul (who was born Nakul, and is more popularly known by his stage name - Nakul), came into being several months after Top Gun was released. This allegedly had no bearing on his birth whatsoever. Born to an Indian Air Force officer dad and a psychologist mum, this military brat spent much of his nomadic childhood swimming, cycling, climbing, falling, rolling, and clearly living life as close to the edge as was humanly possible. He also had a thing for taking things apart, and on occasion, even successfully putting them back together. As a result of this final predilection, he naturally came to be selected, in a manner that could only be described as vividly Darwinian, to study Mechanical Engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology. It was here that this unassuming, yet already masterfully punning geek took to theatre, first acting, and then directing a production every semester. On emerging from uni, he started juggling theatre in the evenings, along with his day job as a research and development engineer. After 4 years and about a hundred shows, and a whimsical decision to take a break, he jumped into theatre full-time, and the rest, as they say, is economics, or more specifically, the severe lack of it. Some theatre directors who'd (fondly?) roll their eyes having directed him would be: Arjun Sajnani - as Richard Rich, in Robert Bolt's Man for All Seasons (2012) with Ashok Mandanna, and as Thomas Novachek, in David Ives' Venus in Fur (2015). Prakash Belawadi - as Werner Heisenberg, in Michael Frayn's Copenhagen (2014 - present), as Martin, in Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun (2016) again with Ashok Mandanna, and as Srinivasa Ramanujan, in Sundar Sarukkai's Hardy's Apology (2015). Arundhati Raja - as Randle Patrick McMurphy, the lead role, in Dale Wasserman's stage adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (2012). Anmol Vellani - as Nikolai Andreitch, in Anton Chekhov's Man with a Violent Temper (2012). Surendranath - as Antonio, in Shylock - a Rangashankara Theatre adaptation of The Merchant of Venice (2016-17). During this time, he figured that he needed to get some training. He started with a workshop on playing Shakespeare with John Bashford, Head of Acting at LAMDA. He furthered this training with an individual voice-and-text residency for a month, again with Shakespeare as basis, with the late Ms. Veenapani Chawla. This was followed by a Shakespeare workshop with Tim Supple, with King Lear as central text, and again a long-term individual mentoring by Tim. He also received training in voice and solo performance from Anmol Vellani, who continues to be a mentor. At Adishakti, he was introduced to the martial art Kalaripayattu, both as an independent form, and as one that assists greatly while engaging with performance work that's physically challenging and demanding. He watched a lot of plays, closely following Indian theatre, the National Theatre UK, and the works of Complicité Theatre company UK. Nakul also directed stage adaptations of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) (2011), and David Mamet's The Shawl (2013-14). He keeps getting onto the stage with these currently running theatre productions: Michael Frayn's Copenhagen - with Prakash Belawadi as Niels Bohr (2014 - present). Shikhandi - written and directed by Faezeh Jalali, in which he plays the male narrator and Shiva, for which he trained in aerials (2018 - present). Gajab Kahani - a Hindi adaptation by Amitosh Nagpal, of Jose Saramago's The Elephant's Journey, directed by Mohit Takalkar, in which he plays the Portuguese Cavalry commander, with Geetanjali Kulkarni as the elephant (2017 - present). Along with theatre, Nakul's appeared in a bunch of TV adverts, that can be found in the videos section, along with scenes from his films - Tu Hai Mera Sunday (2016) and Bellbottom (2021). Tu Hai Mera Sunday (2016) was a officially selected and had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival (2016). It was also officially selected at MAMI Film Festival (2016). A side note here to mention that he appears to be a bit in denial about not being an engineer anymore, and sees engineering as very much a part of his equipment, as an actor/director/carbon-based biped. So he humours himself by keeping in touch with science and tech developments as much as he can. The list of his film and TV/web work can be seen on his page. He hopes to continue to grow this list, along with his list of theatre productions, with more fun and stimulating work, until it's finally time to have that cuppa with Douglas Adams.

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