Ira and Neha Dubey after the show at Kala Mandir. (Below) Neha with Joy Sengupta and a co-actor in Sammy!. Pictures by Aranya Sen

Ok guys, concentrate.? The firm clear voice boomed out of a frail petite frame in her early twenties, in a greenroom at Kala Mandir where a bunch of veteran actors ? including her father Ravi Dubey ? were putting the finishing touches to their makeup.

Minutes later, she walked across to the audience and plonked herself in the back rows, watching the curtains go up on Primetime Theatre Company?s Sammy!, the production that fetched her mother Lillete Dubey the best stage director award at the Mahindra Excellence Theatre Awards in Delhi recently.

On stage, her elder sibling sauntered in as the young Katsurba having a fight with husband Mahatma Gandhi.

Lillete was away on a film shoot in London when her two lissome daughters breezed through town for three days of power-packed performances. One on stage, the other off it.

The elder, Neha, has already made a mark in theatre, having been lauded for her performances in 30 Days in September and in a recent West End production of The Twelfth Night. The younger, Ira, is showing her mettle behind the scenes, as assistant director to Lillete in Sammy!.

?I run the play when Mom is out on shooting,? smiles Ira, back from Yale University where she had been pursuing her graduation.

?Mom was going to stage Sammy! when I returned from Yale, and I got involved in reading the script, as I do with other plays too, and discussing it with (playwright) Partap Sharma? She says I have brought in a fresh perspective to the play. Mom never had any assistant director and now wonders how she managed alone all this while,? giggles Ira, who introduced the actors of Sammy! to various theatre games ? like vocal and physical exercises ? during rehearsals.

With her mother at the helm, Ira says it was a collaborative effort. ?We got along extremely well? And we had a great ensemble cast. I was impressed with the kind of homework Neha had done for her role,? says Ira. She had shown flashes of acting skills when the Mumbai-based Industrial Theatre Company staged The Maids in Calcutta last year.

?I itch to be on stage and though performing is my first love, I do want to pursue theatre direction,? stresses Ira, who is acting in Five Face, another play directed by Pushan Kripalani for Industrial Theatre Company. On screen, she?s done a cameo in the Salman Khan-Nandana Dev Sen starrer Marigold.

Both sisters have practically grown up on stage, having started early (Ira at age six) with an aunt?s children?s theatre company in Delhi.

To breathe life into Kasturba, Neha read up Mahatma Gandhi?s biography by his grandson Arun Gandhi, took trips to Mani Bhavan (where Gandhi used to stay) in Mumbai and looked up whatever material she could find on him.

?Partap?s script was very close to Arun Gandhi?s book, which looked at the man behind the public figure. But not much matter was available on Kasturba. Whatever is there on her shows Kasturba as an elderly woman. So constructing the young Kasturba was very challenging. I thought about her body language, the way she would talk and carry herself? Recreating a historical character was very challenging,? says Neha.

?Mahatma and Kasturba shared a very normal husband-wife relationship. They had their fights and moments of tenderness too. The character of Kasturba is very interesting. She isn?t educated but has a sharp pragmatism. And she helps Gandhiji take several important decisions,? adds Neha.

The elder sister is confident that the younger one has the potential to make it big as a stage director. ?Ira shares my mother?s quality of bringing out the best in an actor. They can really push you to do your best,? she says, while putting on the greasepaint.

Neha is also waiting for her career on the big screen to take off. Two films, My Bollywood Bride and Anjan Dutt?s Bow Barracks Forever will find the actress in distinctly different shades. Next up is ?a very interesting role? in mom Lillete?s debut film as director, slated to roll later this year.