Ahead of Sleepova, which opens later this month at the Bush Theatre, I had a chat with the Casting Director, Jatinder Chera (who I also studied with at NFTS) in the Bush Script Library talking about the show and casting.

SB: Hey, Jatinder! Thanks for having us in the Bush Script Library this afternoon to talk about the casting process of Sleepova. Before we get started, do you want to introduce yourself? How did you get into casting?

JC: Hey, I’m Jatinder Chera. I’m a Freelance Theatre Casting Director and I started off as an actor. Actually, I worked as an actor for ten years, but I wasn’t happy with the roles I was being seen for or the parts that  I was playing. I felt restricted by my ethnicity. Nobody wanted to address that. So I thought, how? How can I do that? Who does that? And I thought, the Casting Director. So I did a Casting Course at the National Film and Television School and I’ve kind of been working in Casting since then. I started off at the National Theatre and now I’m kind of out there on my own.

SB: So the show Sleepova, who’s in it? When can we see it and how can we see it in it?

JC: In it [the show] we have Bukky Bakray, Amber Grappy, Aliyah Odoffin and Shayde Sinclair. The dates of the 24 February to the 8 April at the Bush Theatre. And the story is kind of a coming of age between four Black girls that are experiencing what it means to be Black, to be British, their identity, their queerness, who they are and where they kind of fit into the world and they kind of find it together.

SB: Can you tell us more about the actors in the show?

JC: Sure. So three of them we have making their stage debuts and one is actually making their professional debut as well, they’re still at drama school right now, so this is their first job.

SB: On to our next question. With casting a show with four Black women, do you feel the pressure cast different types of black women? 

JC: Yeah, that’s a really good question. It was something I spoke a lot with Jade Lewis, the director, about when we were talking about the show. It was really important for us to show Black beauty in all its forms, and diversity has always been an important thing for me and kind of the thing that pulled me into casting in how we project diversity on stage and in theatre and what that means, whether it be a show about South Asian community or the Black community. How do we do that, where it’s all-encompassing and it shows the world that we live in right now rather than through a lens that isn’t quite correct. It’s kind of foggy. So it was really important for me and Jade to do that, and we really hope that we did that with the people that we’ve been.

SB: And what’s your favorite thing about the Bush?

JC: My favorite thing about the Bush is that it champions new writers, and new directors. It’s its 50th anniversary and also they gave me my first opportunity as a Casting Director on my own, with my own name, Jatinder Chera. I cast the P word, which was before Sleepova. So I’ll be forever grateful and thankful. And it’s kind of like my home away from home.

SB: Is there anything else we should know about the show?

JC: Nothing that I want to give away. I want you to have a surprise. So I would say book your tickets. Book them now and come on down to the Bush and watch Sleepover and watch these four amazing actors tell this story. Yeah, I think it’s going to be popping. I think it’s going to be a vibe. So hit us up.

SB: So where can we buy tickets for the show?

JC: You can buy tickets on the Bush Theatre website. There are a lot of schemes in place, so there’s something called the Count Me In Scheme, where the tickets are £12. It’s a flat rate fee. There are also concessions in place for students under 26s, senior citizens, and locals to the Bush Theatre. There are loads of things in place for them, too, where you can find concessions on tickets.

SB: where can we find you?

JC: For work-related inquiries, the best place to catch me is by email, also available on social media, but that is purely for socializing and social things. So don’t drop into my DMs there for work-related things, but feel free to follow me there. Twitter, my handle is my name @jatinderchera and my Instagram is @jatinstagram. 

I hope you enjoyed the first part of an ongoing series I’m doing, chatting with various people who work in Film/TV, as well as different industries and careers.  You can watch the video here.

Reminder, Sleepova runs from 24 Feb - 08 Apr 2023 at the Bush Theatre. Join Rey, Elle, Shan, and Funmi. Armed with sugary snacks, school gossip, and secret questions they can only ask each other, their sleepovas are pretty much a sacred space for them. Buy tickets here.

Thanks for reading!

SB x