Jake Mace
We’re counting down to Prague Fringe by shining a light on a number of shows headed to the festival next week. Taranjit Kaur from The Forbidden Productions is the producer-performer of The Chai Queens – A Tale of Love & Longing, directed by Ramanjit Kaur and co-performed alongside Archana Patel. The piece explores what Taranjit describes as the quiet, impossible choices lovers make in the name of family, culture, and survival.
We caught up with Taranjit, Archana and Ramanjit for a pixelated pint to find out more about what inspired the show, the cast’s journey from India to Czechia, and everything in between.
You can catch The Chai Queens – A Tale of Love & Longing as part of Prague Fringe from May 27th-31st at various times at Museum of Alchemists – Divadlo (45mins). Tickets are available through the Prague Fringe Box Office.
Jake: Hi team! Start by telling us a little bit about The Forbidden Productions, what’s drawn you all together as collaborators.
Taranjit: I started The Forbidden Productions, with an intention to showcase society’s untold stories, elevating marginalized voices through powerful artistic expression. It champions women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and underrepresented communities, crafting transformative experiences designed for global stages. The company’s portfolio includes thought-provoking documentaries and the acclaimed short film ‘Love Sex Soprano’.
It’s been also quite an experience collaborating with Ramanjit as a director after a decade. We trained with the same theatre director in our youth and since our training and language of theatre is similar, its easier working with her. My co-actor Archana Patel has also been a part of the production from the point of conceptualisation and devising.
Jake: Tell us about the characters we meet in The Chai Queens – who are they, where have they come from, what are their relationships to each other?
Taranjit: In The Chai Queens, we meet Babli and Tejal, two childhood best friends whose lives once intertwined in the innocent, electric intimacy of adolescence. Fifteen years later, they meet again at a wedding—now grown women in their late 30s, sculpted by time, tradition, and choices they never fully got to make.
Babli is a full of life, adventurous woman who has buried her truth beneath societal pressure, while Tejal carries the quiet boldness of someone who chose a different path. It’s about the rediscovery of love that never got a name, and the weight of everything that was left unsaid.
Jake: The show has already had a great response at preview performances in India. Tell us about the journey so far and what you’ve learnt along the way.
Taranjit: Its been a long journey for me as an artist moving towards producing and creating my own work beginning with writing the storyline for the play to now actually seeing it come alive to an International audience feels like a leap in itself. Last year I was here with Stories of India, a spoken word show which received an overwhelming response. That’s where the dream of coming back with a theatre production germinated and now it becomes a reality its feels surreal.
In India, the closed door performance for a selected audience felt like we were holding up a mirror to the room. People cried quietly. They lingered after the show. Some told us it felt like watching a part of themselves they’d kept hidden.
What we’ve learned is that The Chai Queens speaks to something many experience but few articulate—the silent negotiations of identity, love, and belonging. For us, as collaborators, the process demanded vulnerability and trust.
Ramanjit: My journey with The Chai Queens has been one of minimalism—working closely with visual imagery and a cast of just two actors. It’s a beautifully intimate story of love, passion, and longing that travels across distance and time.Crafting its layers has been both challenging and magical—conveying love and ache through objects, the physicality of the performers, and the visual language that unfolds like a painting., it’s been profoundly transformative—at once humbling and reinventing.
Archana: This journey has taught me to be adaptable as a performer and more empathetic as a person. Preparing for a global audience made me reflect deeply on the stories we tell – especially queer stories – and how to approach them with curiosity, care, and presence.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Taranjit: We hope the audience walks away with a little more softness—for themselves, and for others. The play isn’t about grand declarations; it’s about glances, unsaid words, and what it means to carry love quietly. If you’ve ever questioned where your truth ends and societal expectation begins, this story might feel familiar.
We’re not offering answers—we’re offering space. Space for the ache. Space for memory and childhood nostalgia. Space to reflect on who we might have been, had we been allowed to choose freely.
For those who have never lived these experiences, we hope it invites empathy. For those who have, we hope it offers recognition—and maybe even a kind of healing.
Ramanjit: We would like the audience to go back with a lingering feeling of true love when two people bond , share and connect beyond the boundaries of gender, age and distance.
Jake: Tell us about how the show has ended up being performed at Prague Fringe, and what you’re most excited for about the festival.
Taranjit: Returning to Prague Fringe feels like a homecoming. After the overwhelmingly warm response to the previous performance I (Taranjit) had come with in 2024 – ‘Stories from India’ with Unerase, I knew this was the right platform to share The Chai Queens. And then of course, I got the wonderful opportunity to apply and be invited to bring this play to the 2025 Prague Fringe Festival. The festival headed by Steve Gove, is one of those rare spaces where experimental, personal, and global work can live side by side—where audiences come
open-hearted and curious.
We’re especially excited to perform in the Museum of Alchemists, which adds its own aura to the piece—it’s as if the space itself holds secrets. That’s the kind of setting The Chai Queens thrives in. We’re looking forward to the intimacy, the conversations, the unexpected connections that fringe festivals uniquely spark.
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Taranjit: We’d say it’s a cup of strong, spiced chai—brewed slowly, with layers that reveal themselves over time. There’s sweetness, yes—but also warmth, complexity, and a lingering aftertaste that stays with you.
It’s something deeply familiar, comforting even—but when shared in silence or during meaningful conversation, it becomes something more.
A reminder, you can catch The Chai Queens – A Tale of Love & Longing as part of Prague Fringe from May 27th-31st at various times at Museum of Alchemists – Divadlo (45mins). Tickets are available through the Prague Fringe Box Office.
Elisabeth Flett
Freddie Haberfellner
