The creator describes a television-development collaboration with the filmmakers who worked with her on an earlier scripted project.
The Garam Masala Dating team, primarily Surbhi and Wyatt Feegrado, are working with Korchula Productions to develop Garam Masala Dating as an unscripted television series, extending a creative relationship that began well before the live dating show existed.
The proposed adaptation centres on South Asian singles meeting on stage, with Surbhi and comedian Wyatt Feegrado hosting the encounter. They co-created the live show, on which Surbhi also serves as executive producer. A television distribution agreement has yet to be finalised.
Korchula is best known for Can We Take a Joke?, Ted Balaker’s 2015 documentary on comedy and free speech, which featured Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette and Lisa Lampanelli. The couple also made Little Pink House, the 2017 drama starring Catherine Keener, which Courtney Balaker wrote and directed.
The production company’s connection to Surbhi goes back to 2016, when she attended a Washington, D.C. screening of Can We Take a Joke? A question she asked during the audience discussion drew laughter and brought her to the attention of filmmaker Ted Balaker. He and Courtney Balaker later worked with her through their production company.
That collaboration included a scripted pilot based on her life. Its development was interrupted by the pandemic. The new project returns them to television with something different: a comedy format that already exists as a live performance.
Garam Masala Dating’s appeal starts with a situation viewers can understand quickly. Two people meet, the hosts ask questions and the audience watches them try to establish whether there is any chemistry. The comedians can shape the conversation, but the participants’ responses determine much of what follows.
Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking ran for three seasons and showed that a global audience will watch South Asian families argue about marriage. That series was presented by a professional matchmaker and played the search straight. Garam Masala Dating is a comedy first, hosted by two stand-ups, and its daters are chosen for their willingness to laugh at the process.
The live format has a useful feature for an adaptation: the audience can understand the situation before anyone has explained the rules. There is a first date, there are two hosts and there is a room invested in what happens. Television would offer space to spend longer with the people involved, beyond the exchange that makes a short clip.
“Nobody on our show is pretending this is how people should meet,” says Feegrado. “It is a terrible way to meet someone. That is why it is fun to watch, and why a surprising number of them end up dating afterwards.”
For Surbhi, the proposed adaptation brings together work she has pursued in different forms. Her earlier pilot was based on her own life. A one-woman show put her writing into live performance. Garam Masala Dating adds the challenge of creating a repeatable show around people whose conversations have not been written for them.
Surbhi and Feegrado will host the series, and casting will draw on the pool the live show already has. It receives around 200 applications for every performance, and the producers expect that number to climb once a series is announced.
