On the danger of self-made gurus

After four intense weeks of rehearsal, we were so close to getting our musical on the stage I could almost feel the heat of the lights on my skin. I've always loved that artificial sunburn. But Tuesday morning I discovered that my first rehearsal cheque had bounced, and I felt a horrible knot of unease bloom in the pit of my stomach. I cycled over the river to rehearsals that morning, sailing over the wide, untroubled Thames in all its grimy glory, and broached the delicate matter with the director. He hadn't received a cheque at all, and knew nothing about it. Then the stage manager walked in with a face like thunder, and the material we had spent a laborious, frustrating, exhilarating month creating unravelled like a jumper snagged on a runaway train. By the end of Wednesday, we were in a huddle on the floor of the rehearsal room, having just stumbled through a very rough run of the show, and awaiting the arrival of the producer, who had until 5 'o clock to come up with the funds. The piece was his brainchild. He had written a weak script, but assembled a strong, eclectic mix of creative people, and we had taken ownership of the material, and spent a lot of time improvising, devising and reworking. The premise of the show was that we were a rag-tag entourage following a self-made guru from Mumbai to London to produce a Bollywood-style Romeo and Juliet. It was a crazy idea, but it was turning into a strangely tasty dish. I was having a ball creating a Russian gold-digger and Juliet-wannabe, determined to upstage the piece and have my share of the limelight. The choreographer, Ash Mukerjee, was an exceptional classical Indian dancer, as was our Juliet, Khavita, a beautiful girl who originally hails from Malaysia. Khavita was working as an engineer before being cast in the part, and had given up her job for the chance. The two male dancers were jazz and ballet trained, Rain having danced in Matthew Bourne's acclaimed all-male Swan Lake, and Sam is fresh out of college and a wonderful tap dancer and singer. Zoe, the other female dancer and actress, is a bright, talented American. It really was a case of life imitating art; through the process of giving birth to this multi-racial child, we had become the unlikely team we were depicting. We had laughed and sweated and sighed together. But as the producer slowly walked across the floor to face us that afternoon, we knew instantly that it was lost, and our child was stillborn. We had been deceived by a self-made guru and fantasist. He hadn't been able to stump up the cash. Hopes dashed, we discussed the ugly realities of going to the small-claims court to get our contracts honoured, swapped contact details and each slowly left the room. I stopped in the sunny park on Kings road on my way home, and practiced my lines for an audition on Monday. I can't bear to look down or back; I know how dangerous that is. Today, I wake up free as a bird and flat broke. I will need all my wits and chutzpah to get through this, and I choose to have faith that this hiccup is a challenge and a veiled blessing. I hear the words of my character ringing in my ears; "Crisis, what crisis? Let me show you what I can do..."