I Wasn’t Okay

This was a performance that was first created as part of Sanjay’s final year at Drama School when he created the original piece “Ask Me If I’m Okay” as part of the Bridge Week Festival.

During the pandemic, he shared the piece after 16 months through the Space Theatre in London. Directed by Yusuf Niazi. The piece then continued to be developed and after shaking up the piece further and a title change, the piece went forward.

First the title change became the current “I Wasn’t Okay”, which then led to Sanjay taking the piece to Manchester Contact Theatre, where he shared 15 minutes as part of the Queer Contact Scratch Sharing Performance in February 2022.

In December 2021 and March 2022, Sanjay was lucky enough to be given space at the Tron Theatre’s Vic Bar, where alongside fellow collaborators (Kenny Dunlop, Hamshya Rajkumar, Chandler James and Keir Aitken) he brought into the piece new ideas, movement and song.

With the 2 days of shaping in the Vic Bar, Sanjay was then chosen as 1 of the 4 artists to showcase a work in progress as part of the Tron Theatre’s Outside Eyes Programme. It was a powerful yet emotional performance and it was the first time that the sharing had had a sold out audience giving feedback.

It was here during the Tron Theatre performance, that Sanjay was then nominated and the successful award recipient of the John Mather Trusts’ Rising Star of Scotland with National Theatre of Scotland, where Sanjay is a writer on attachment for a year and will develop the show, under the support of Dramaturg Rosie Kellaghar.

This show is really close to Sanjay’s heart as it is a topic he has dealt with and has dedicated this show to his friends Joel and Tim.