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<\/p>\nWhen musical-theater company Team Starkid staged \u2018A Very Potter Musical\u2019 at the University of Michigan in 2009, they could scarcely have imagined that a decade later their production would be updated and restaged by students at Habib University, thousands of miles away, in a context far removed from their own version.<\/p>\n
But that is the power not only of YouTube, where Team Starkid uploads video of its numerous productions, but of musical theater at large.<\/p>\n
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Enter: \u2018A Very Desi Potter Musical\u2019 directed by Hashim Abbas and Haisum Raza. Running for two nights at the University\u2019s spacious H.M Habib Auditorium, the musical resonated with an audience whose expectations from the familiar world of witchcraft and wizardry were mostly upended and, on occasion, even met. Bellatrix Lestrange! We know her! Oh she\u2019s dancing with Voldemort to \u2018Nagan\u2019? Harry, Ron and Herminone\u2019s friendly banter slips in and out of Urdu effortlessly.<\/p>\n
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In this iteration of \u2018A Very Potter Musical,\u2019 anything went- provided it enriched the pre-existing material and anchored it in broadly identifiable \u2018desi-ness.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018A Very Desi Potter Musical\u2019s\u2019 cauldron of ingredients stirred up a heady brew of fandom, fan-fiction, pop culture, parody and musical theater. It worked for Team Starkid and propelled them to viral fame, and it certainly reaped rewards for the cast and crew of AVDPM.<\/p>\n
Something about the nature of the screenplay, and the genre itself, gave us room to manoeuvre and improvise. It was really rewarding seeing the audience on both nights respond so positively to these sometimes on-the-spot improvisations!<\/p>\n
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Oftentimes the intrusion of desi cultural references (anyone recall the Captain Safeguard anthem?) lent the musical a strange, even silly quality.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth remembering that the original 2009 production was fanfiction repurposed as musical theater\/parody. While often irreverent, at the heart of it, it came from a place of earnest love for J.K. Rowling\u2019s phenomenal and enchanting source material.<\/p>\n
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\u2018A Very Desi Potter Musical\u2019, too, approached the fictional world of Hogwarts with the giddy excitement of a fan. The cast sang, shook, and improvised their way into the audience\u2019s hearts- an audience that came, surely, for Hogwarts but stayed for the \u2018desi\u2019 andaaz\/flavour\/twist.<\/p>\n
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This write-up was written by Ahmed Ali, a Comparative Liberal Studies student from the Class of 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When musical-theater company Team Starkid staged \u2018A Very Potter Musical\u2019 at the University of Michigan in 2009, they could scarcely have imagined that a decade later their production would be updated and restaged by students at Habib University, thousands of miles away, in a context far removed from their own version. But that is the<\/p>\n