Woo: You want to show the video first?

Patravadi: To say something first.

Woo: Welcome. Okay.

Patravadi: Thank you.

Woo: Thank you for coming.

Patravadi: Thank you and good afternoon.
I introduce myself a little bit, so you know where I come from.
I come from Thailand of course. I was a movie star when I was young. I didn’t like the movie. A lot of you guys want going to the movies. I tell you, you talk to me. I didn’t like the movies, so I produced for the television. People say beautiful people are for the television. I say no. Brain is better than beauty.
I use intelligent actors who are very ugly, and all my episodes were doing so well.
Now it’s a trend that anybody can go to the television. You don’t have to be beautiful, but you have to have the brain. But anyway, after a while, I didn’t like the television neither. Because there are not many interesting people to talk to. If you like gossiping, sex education or something like that, then it’s a good place for you, but not for me. So, I thought about doing theatre.
It’s no need to build a theatre. Theatre is everywhere, so a theatre started. My theatre, Patravadi Theatre, started in the parking lot. You know, using the doors of my office that is beautiful, and the trees around there as a set, and there was no roof. It was raining, but nobody left. Even the actors, they didn’t leave. It was a lot of fun to see a play in the rain, sitting in the rain, soaking wet, and be part of it. Anyway, it was such an experience.
Later, I had the roof, because the rain destroyed a lot of my equipment. But it was self-funded, because Thailand doesn’t believe in art education. They think people who are actresses, musicians are undesirable people.
Parents always say never to become an actress. But my mother, she was my great fan. She supported me to have my education in Los Angeles, later in New York and everywhere.
And my King, I have to say thank you to my King. He encouraged me and supported me, not with much money, but with the heart and attention. One year, I didn’t submit any project, and he asked why not. I was 60 at that time, and they thought I would retire. So I told him I would do education, art in education for the rest of my life. So that’s why I’m still here. I’m almost 70 now.
Anyway, Patravadi Theatre was doing well, raising young people, giving them opportunities to continue in their education, according to their preferences and skills. We have raised a lot of national artists and backstage people like designers.
One day, it was flooded. I think in 2008. The water came over the stage, and it was very heavily flooded. And I smiled. People thought I would cry. But you know once you do a lot of theatres. The theatre is a place where you solve problems.
You know, when you see the reality in life. That’s why the theatre is great for education. The theatre is great for teaching kids how to look at life, how to look at people, how to live with reality. So, I said well, it’s flooded, so I moved to Hua Hin, which is a resort town about two hours from Bangkok. It’s a very popular place. There are many palaces of my kings, coz the air is beautiful. I thought it’s the best place to raise young people. There are five universities and many schools. It’s a small place. It’s a hub of education. But nobody talks to each other, and they are all doing their own things.
I thought that now the theatre is flooded, I should use my theatre people and the knowledge I have in the theatre to raise children, to do anything, not just theatre.
It has been successful, because the people graduated from my school go to the economy sector, or become doctors, scientists and chefs. You know, they do anything. Few of them go to the design, acting, and music, because I encourage them not to go to the theatre or anything.Because going to the theatre is poor. You know you’re not gonna make anything. You work so hard, and you’re poor. If God condemns those who work hard and are poor, then you go to the theatre. But if not, if you have a choice, do something else.
But use the art to create, you know, to live well. You know, not being greedy, but live well. Anyway, I’ll show you a little bit of the school, so you see what it’s about.
OK. The video? Video please.

Patravadi: OK, video. I don’t want the sound, because it’s in Thai. I just want to talk about the video.

Patravadi: We should move? And the blocks should be moved please.

Woo: OK.

Patravadi: It’s a normal school, and we teach them eight subjects like other people, Science, Maths., English, Thai and Social Education. We have kids from kindergarten to high school. But we use art in almost every subject to help them with a learning skill. Most of my teachers are artists, very prominent artists, but they have a very good education in the field that they teach. They are great teachers because they entertain the kids all the time. So I think artists are great teachers. Because the kids never sleep, you know, they pay attention. We always have activities for them to learn, instead of just doing boring homework. We also teach all kinds of things, because we are a boarding school. We teach all kinds of things until Saturday. We study from 8 to 6 every day, including Saturday. Agriculture, everything, you never know what they want to be. And if they say they want to learn something, I will find a friend who is a skillful teacher to teach them.
I’m very happy that, thank you Danny for introducing me to so many interesting friends, who have been teaching there.
Last year, there was the Indian master. What’s his name? Krishna… We met in Nanjing, and he was there teaching.
And George Conope. Mangsha was teaching there as well.
You know, Mangsha, she’s in opera, Chinese opera. These are the people who graduated, and they have gone into different universities. We have a list of them.Some even get scholarship to go to the economy major in Canada, and all that. I mean this school is very big. We have a hundred acres. The buildings are small and low, because I plan that I can go to all the buildings when they have wheelchairs. This is just a look of the school.
We teach everything, all kinds of sports they can choose from, from golf to horse riding to football. Everything they can choose from. We have gifts from friends, so the kids can learn how to take care of the horses, animals and whatever.
There is also swimming, yoga, aquas, yoga, Taekwondo classes, and whatever. Anything that they ask. Anything that should be taught to the kids. And in small class, a small class has no more than 15 kids, because this is how we can take care of each one of them, not just academically, but we should be able to take care of them, with their soul, their manners and their problems. This is the science class. We made salted eggs, and they sold very well in the market. You know it’s our big industry. So, everything, bonsai. We also have international people from New York, from NYU to come to learn with us, to learn the culture every year. We have the theatre, and I’ll tell you about the theatre a little bit later.
The theatre solves my problems for learning. This year, we had a problem. Thai kids don’t want to learn Thai classical dance or music any more. So, I do Ramayana. I say, anyone of you want to do the play? No? Come. They all come. You know, people love to be on the stage. I say, read the play first. You know, read the play first, and they all read the literature. This is how I get them to read the literature. I teach literature.
This is all about food. We give good food. This is very important. Kids should eat well. They shouldn’t eat junk food.
We have fresh vegetables and fruits, and we grow them. We teach them how to grow them and eat them. Nice air and nice food are parts of growing up. It’s not just about good education. So, anyway, I think that’s it. We have a lot of lecturers and lots of activities. You know him? You know her?
Yeah, a lot of going around, seeing things, educating them, seeing things, talking to people, and doing all kinds of things.
Anyway, I think I’ll stop at that. I’ll come back.

Woo: You want to show them the other video now?

Patravadi: OK. Let’s go. We have two videos that we did. You can have sound with this video. Every year, we have what we call the literature, music and languages, to teach them Thai language articulately and English language. So, we do Ramayana, because nobody wants to do Thai classical dance anymore. I say, do a play. They learn the classical dance. So, this is traditional Thai dance? It’s modernized. They learn to sing, they learn to play music, and they learn to act, but the most important thing is that they learn the literature. These are all students, in many classes, in all classes, and some of them are first time on stage. And this guy, he is a little retarded. This is Mynop, you know, my Mynop (011000). We use the teachers to perform with the students, and this is how we teach, so we can look after them in behavior, and explain things, and they can study from our discipline. This guy has never done Thai classical dance before, and now he’s a great Thai classical dancer. This is how I bring them into the art. By doing something modern, I lead the modern. She’s a teacher.
We bring the teachers to make the mouthful of saliva to see beautiful dances. And we will use silly things to make people laugh. This is a Ramayana story about the golden dear. So, we mix the classical and the modern. And this girl, she was singing Thai classical songs. She learnt it in a few months, which was a great achievement to me. This is how to bring them into the old art, without forcing them.
This is Ramayana, Ramayana. We mix a little bit of our acrobat class, you know. OK. We are going to the next one. Yeah, this is Mynop. You know Mynop? He always… These kids, they never play music. I mean they have music classes, but they do the whole production. They are in the band doing the whole production. This is like every Monday rehearsal. It’s a class for Thai classical dance and music. So, at the second semester, we produced the story. Seeing another one. That’s another one.
Go to the next one please. Do we have time or finish?

Woo: OK. How long is this one?

Patravadi: Maybe we see a little bit. This is the work of Krish, (011258) the Indian guy that I met in China. He came to teach us about India. This is about Buddhism time. He came to teach us the Indian dance, so we learn the culture from…
This is Mynop. We all learnt Indian movement from him. So, this is learning culture from other countries through performances and plays. We don’t have to finish all this. But I want to see a little more of…And we speak Thai and English.
This is chanting. This is an old chanting. And the kids learn how to do the video. People learn to do what they want to.
This is old chanting that nobody does it anymore, but we make it into…But it’s real chanting. But it becomes so modern that we think it’s something. That is me. I’m always in the play.

Woo: The white-haired guy is you?

Patravadi: Yeah.

Woo: OK.

Woo: That’s my grandson. He’s a musician. He wants to be a musician, so he’s going to Berkeley next year. So, I’m very happy. We do this, so that he works in the theatre. The Indians have the Tap, the feet thing, and we compare it with the American Tap, and then use it in the story. Anyway, I think this is enough. Thank you... Thank you.