A coat of many wows!
Strap: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, the Broadway classic dazzles today — bigger, bolder, and Bangalore-born
Blurb:
What makes this version particularly special is how it retains the essence of the original while infusing it with a fresh, local flavour
Bindu Gopal Rao
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat is a once-in-a-generation celebration of Bangalore’s creative spirit, reimagined for a new era. Presented as an amateur production by arrangement with The Really Useful Group Ltd., this staging is as much a cultural milestone as it is a personal tribute from Phase 1 to the city that gave it its start. For founder Oum Pradutt, who performed in Joseph as a student alongside director Kevin Oliver, this show is a heartfelt gift to the city that shaped both their creative journeys.
The building of a community
Joseph… is a story that transcends time. At its core, it weaves together themes of jealousy, betrayal, resilience, and ultimately, forgiveness — emotions that resonate with people across ages and backgrounds. What sets this production apart is its all-male cast drawn entirely from Bangalore.
“This is a sung-through musical — meaning the entire narrative unfolds through music,” explains Kevin Oliver, the show’s Director and Choreographer. He adds that this structure lends the show a rhythm and emotional intensity that keeps audiences engaged from start to finish. What makes this version particularly special, he notes, is how it retains the essence of the original while infusing it with a fresh, local flavour.
“We’ve brought in a couture aesthetic and a distinct visual style. You’ll witness a classic tale reimagined with Bangalore’s own voices, and it’s presented on a scale and with styling rarely seen on Indian theatre stages,” he says.
India’s first all-male pop opera began as a bold vision — one that many considered unrealistic. But the dream took root. Oliver recalls how over a hundred boys and men came together to bring it to life: teenagers, college students, working professionals, even fathers and sons. They joined rehearsals as strangers and gradually became a tightly knit ensemble. “Some had never stepped on a stage, others hadn’t sung in years,” he says.
The journey involved months of vocal training, character exploration, movement practice, and a deep dive into discipline. Slowly but surely, transformation took place.
“By the time we reached production week, we weren’t looking at a cast anymore — we were looking at a community,” Oliver reflects. The group had grown together, supported one another, and it was that camaraderie, he says, that ultimately became the heartbeat of the show.
Musically speaking
The music of Joseph… is famously eclectic — shifting between pop, gospel, ballads, and rock ‘n’ roll — which made it both thrilling and complex to rehearse. Director Kevin Oliver shared that the team adapted the arrangements extensively to suit the cast’s strengths. They added harmonies, stripped back certain segments, and layered others, all in an effort to make the score feel as dynamic and vibrant as the city itself. “It wasn’t just about sounding good. It was about telling the story in a way that felt honest and fresh,” Oliver highlighted.
Traditionally, Joseph… is performed with a single narrator, but this production broke new ground with a unique nine-part narrator format. Oliver explained that each narrator was crafted to represent a distinct emotion, vocal tone, or perspective. “This gave us more texture in the storytelling and allowed us to shift pace and mood more fluidly,” he said.
The format also opened up more opportunities for young performers to take the spotlight. With every shift in narration, the audience is drawn deeper into the story from a fresh vantage point. It was a first-of-its-kind creative choice — even internationally — and brought a shared, collective heartbeat to the musical, rather than focusing on a single voice.
Couture cues
Costumes were never an afterthought in this production — they were central to the storytelling. The team collaborated with two world-renowned designers, Michael Cinco and Furne One Amato, whose couture vision transformed the stage with exceptional generosity and craftsmanship.
The iconic Dreamcoat alone weighs 21 kilos and is crafted from more than a dozen types of fabric, adorned with hand-sewn details and hundreds of Swarovski crystals.
Each major character — Pharaoh, Joseph, and Potiphar — was given a look that felt both dramatic and layered with meaning. Meanwhile, the ensemble costumes were custom-designed in partnership with JD School of Design, offering younger performers stylised, multi-layered outfits that allowed for both expression and ease of movement on stage.
Director Kevin Oliver remarked that every garment had a purpose. “We made sure each costume told a story,” he said, adding that the team aimed to blend fashion and theatre in a way rarely seen on an Indian stage.
Choir Calling
Featuring an all-male cast drawn from schools like Bishop Cotton’s, Cathedral, and Frank Anthony, the production is also breathing new life into Bangalore’s rich choir tradition.
Oum Pradutt, Founder of Phase 1 World, reflected on the city’s legacy of creativity. He said Bangalore has always had a strong cultural undercurrent — with generations of remarkable artists, designers, writers, and musicians — but what it has lacked are the large-scale venues and platforms to bring that talent together. “We don’t have enough stages built for shows of this ambition – but that’s beginning to change,” he pointed out.
He added that Joseph… was their way of responding to this gap — a message that the talent exists, the audience is ready, and there’s no longer any need to look beyond the city to create something world-class.
The show, he said, is proof that Bangalore can produce, perform, and pull off something of this scale — with its own people, on its own terms. “If even one child in the audience walks away dreaming of being on stage someday, or one school restarts its choir because of this – we’ll feel like we did what we came to do,” Pradutt said with conviction.
And this, he added, is only the beginning of a much bigger movement.
Good to Know
- Venue: Good Shepherd Auditorium, Richmond Town
- Dates: July 17, 18 & 19, 2025 (three shows daily)
- Directed by: Kevin Oliver
- Produced by: Phase 1 World
- Tickets: Check local listings