Mind Adventures is pleased to be working with two actors we’ve never worked with before. Both Nushelle de Silva and Sulochana Dissanayake have extensive experience on-stage, both in and outside of Sri Lanka, and we’re delighted they’ve joined the cast of our new show, bringing to to it their experience, talent and dynamic creative instinct.

Sulochana Dissanayake

Sulochana Dissanayake - Actor, theatre-director, puppeteer.

Sulochana is a freelance theatre-artist engaged in theater-creation, and theatre-based HR training and education, based in Pita-Kotte, Sri Lanka. She graduated from Bates College,  (USA) in May 2009 with Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Economics and Theatre. Formally trained in acting, directing and play-writing, she pursued internships to gain professional theater experience in leading American theaters/programmes. She worked as an Apprentice for the Williamstown Theater Festival 2007, one of the leading summer stock theaters in USA, where she co-created an original ensemble piece. In summer 2008, she was selected for a Directing Internship at The Guthrie Theater – one of the top ten regional theaters of USA located in Minnesota, and went onto to direct one of the 2 mainstage productions of Bates College – becoming one of the rare students to be awarded a position usually reserved for faculty.

She has travelled to and worked with theatre in Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, South Africa and Indonesia. In Indonesia, she worked with internationally acclaimed artists who combined ancient traditions of puppetry to create contemporary performances that delighted local and foreign audiences by retaining a unique cultural identity.

Nushelle de Silva

Nushelle as The Skriker.

Nushelle has worked with Tracy Holsinger several times before, while a student of Ladies’ College, Colombo, when she acted in productions directed by Tracy for the Annual Inter-School Drama Competition and the Annual All-Island Shakespeare Drama Competition. She graduated from Princeton University in 2011 with a Major in Architecture and a Minor in Theatre, and believes she is putting her degree in design to good use in the devising and rehearsal process for Mind Adventures’ new show, exploring the relationship between religion and politics, cutting out cardboard puppets, and learning how to weave cloth. She’s never attempted devised theatre before, but is excited about the process.

At Princeton, she has played several notable roles: including the title role in Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker as part of her theatre thesis, for which she was awarded the Francis LeMoyne Page Theatre Award for distinctive achievement in theatre, Lady Anne in Richard III, Ophelia in Hamlet, and the Tooth Fairy in God’s Ear. Currently, she is using a university fellowship to run a series of theatre and arts workshops for formerly displaced children in Mullaitivu.