Amol Parashar Actor Which is the last best play you saw and why? STORIES IN A SONG. What energy. What honesty. What skill. Your favourite adda to see a play Prithvi theatre, all the way. Your favourite playwright I am not so good at having favorites. I am reading a play by Badal Sircar. He is a legend. I am currently doing a play written by Ramu Ramanathan. I love the way he writes. I used to love everything that one of my very dear friends from college (Himshwet Gaurav) would write. I hope he starts writing again. Your favourite play-character Jimmy Gallagher from Bertolt Brecht's RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. I was part of the production. Umesh Jagtap played Jimmy. You had to just watch him. The honesty and power with which he performed would blow us all away. A play you would like to see filmed. Why? CHUGADDHAM SYM-PHONEY - our version of RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. Chandan Roy Sanyal had directed it. He always spoke about making a film out of it. He is a very quirky and visual director. I would like to see the film when it gets made, or better still, be in it. A novel/short story you would like to see on stage? Why? Anything by Haruki Murakami. I have only read a couple of his novels and a few of his short stories but I would like to see a talented director/designer bring them to life on stage. Murakami's writing is very visual and 'inside-the-head' which can be challenging and exciting to put on stage. The most hilarious play you have seen SUPER 8 by Akvarious Productions. And, the 'funny' stories from STORIES IN A SONG. A play, which is over-hyped Can't think of any. I think plays in general are so under-hyped (compared to the other performing arts), that they should get as much hype as possible. A play character you would like to ''dialogue'' with Lucky from Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT. For the sheer curiosity of it. A passage from an important play that you can recite I don't think I have ever learnt lines of a play that I have not performed in. I can recite Jimmy Gallagher's monologue from CHUGGADHAM SYM-PHONEY/RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. I have performed it at auditions where we are asked to 'do something, anything'. Though I was not playing Jimmy in the production, after 7 months of rigorous rehearsals, we better knew the play inside out. A play that changed your perception about the theatre VIDEO by Tin Can Productions from Kolkata. It was part of the youth theatre festival Thespo a few years ago. The play taught me you could pull off jaw-dropping stuff on an experimental stage. All you need is an uber-strong vision and 101% conviction of everyone in the team for that vision. Of course, it's easier said than done. How do you regard the Mumbai theatre scene? I am a small cog in Mumbai's theatre and it would be inappropriate of me to critique it. Of course, I love it. I want to be a part of it for as long as I can. I think there is a lot of opportunity to work with different kinds of people and be part of different kinds of productions. Doing theatre in Mumbai has accentuated the learning process for me. Have you read any interesting books/articles concerning the theatre? Why did you find them interesting? I don't remember reading a book on theatre. I read Neil Simon's memoirs- 'Rewrites' and I fell in love with his insights into the business and art of theatre. He writes poignantly about creating theatre and talks humorously about the idiosyncrasies of actors and directors. There are beautiful/tragic/funny anecdotes, but they are all presented with Simon's trademark witty view-of-the-world. If you have ever been a part of a theatre production/s, can you recall an event that was insightful, significant or simply humorous? There are, of course, too many. But I very much recall one of them. I was travelling with DIRTY TALK- a Working Title Production. We were in Manchester. We were opening the 'Contacting the World' Theatre festival there. We were nervous - the first team out of the 12 to perform. When the play was announced - there was a thunderous cheer from the audience. I have never heard anything like that ever. The thunder was so loud that you could feel the walls of the theatre reverberating. The audience said they wanted to be heard till Mumbai - from where we had come. Standing in the wings at that time - listening to 500 people cheering at the top of their lungs - only for one reason, the love of theatre, we felt as if we were in the Woodstock of theatre. Your favourite director/actor/music or set designer I love all my directors. Like actors have different personalities, so do directors. They all have their varied ways of looking at a text, their own styles of working. It's interesting to try and get inside your director's head to understand what s/he expects from you. Some of the heads that I have regularly tried to get into belong to Jaimini Pathak, Akarsh Khurana, Chandan Roy Sanyal. A significant Indian production that you may have witnessed All theatre productions are significant. Life in the theatre without the humble batata-wada or the cutting chai... or can you recall the best gastronomic experience you've had in the precincts of the theatre to date? The Ranga-Shankara canteen in Bangalore is a delight. I was glad to discover that somebody thought theatre-wallahs are worthy of good food. Every time I go there, I try out something new in hope of finding a flaw in their kitchen, but I always come back defeated by their culinary skills and delighted by the food.   read / post your comments More Speaks Aakanksha Gade Abhishek Pattnaik Adhaar Khurana Adhir Bhat Theatre Speak Aish Pandit Theatre Speak Ajitesh Gupta Akanksha Gupta Akarsh Khurana Akriti Singh Akshat Nigam Akshay Shimpi Aman Gupta Aman Gupta Theatre Speak Amit Behl Amol Parashar Anand Tiwari Ankit Soni Anubha Fatehpuria Apara Mehta Archana Patel Nandi Arghya Lahiri Arnesh Ghose Arun Kakade Aseem Hattangady Ashish Saleem Ashutosh Potdar Ashwin Gidwani Asif Ali Beg Atul Kumar Atul Satya Koushik Azaad Bhakti Rathod Bhushan Korgaonkar Bijon Mondal Boman Irani Brajesh Hirjeev Chaitanya Tamhane Charudatta Bhagwat Chirag Vohra Theatre Speak Chitralekha Rathod Chitransh Pawar Cyrus Dastoor Damini Kanwal Danesh Irani Darrshan Jariwalla Debobrata Banerjee Deepika Deshpande Amin Deesh Mariwala Delna Patel Devika Shahani Punjabi Dhanendra Kawade Theatre Speak Dharmendra Gohil Dhruv Lohumi Dilnaz Irani Dinesh Thakur Dinyar Tirandas Divya Jagdale Divya Palat Dolly Thakore Faezeh Jalali Theatre Speak Gaurav Singh Geeta Manek Theatre Speak Gurleen Judge Hardik Sangani Harsh Desai Harshal Singh Hidayat Ali Sami Hilda David Himanshu Singh Howard Rosemeyer Hridaynath Jadhav Hussaini Dawawala Huzan Wadia Imran Rasheed Inaayat Ali Sami Ira Dubey Ishitta Arun Jagdish Rajpurohit Jaimini Pathak Jaimini Pathak1 Jameel Khan Janak Toprani Jasvinder Singh Jayati Bhatia Theatre Speak Jaydeep Apte Jim Sarbh Joy Fernandes Joy Sengupta Jyoti Vyas Kajal Gadhia Kamlesh Mota Kamlesh Oza Karthik T M Ketan Karande Khanjan Thumber Kulvinder Bhakshish Kumud Mishra Kyla D'Souza L J Mehta Theatre Speak Lillete Dubey Lubna Salim Maanvi Gagroo Mahabano Mody Kotwal Manali Kale Manasi Prabhakar Joshi Manaswini Lata Ravindra Mandar Chandwadkar Maneesh Verma Manish Gandhi Mansi Multani MD Pallavi Meena Vaibhav Theatre Speak Meenal Patel Meher Acharia Dar Meherzad Patel Mikhail Sen Mohit Agarwal Mohit Sharma Mujeeb Khan Nageen Tanvir Nagesh Bhosale Naman Mukherji Namit Das Namrata Pathak Theatre Speak Naseeruddin Shah Naushil Mehta Naushil Mehta (Part II) Nazneen Madan Neelam Gheewala Neha Singh Nipun Dharmadhikari Nivedita Baunthiyal Om Katare Omkar Bhatkar Padma Damodaran Parag Dubey Paromita Chatterjee Pathy Aiyar Pradnya Shastri Prajakt Deshmukh Pramod Pathak Pranati Prakash Rai Pranay Gupta & Sohini Gupta Pratik Gandhi Pratik Kothari Pratima Kulkarni Preeta Mathur Pritesh Sodha Priyanshu Painyuli Quasar Thakore Padamsee Radha Bhardwaj Rahul Antani Rahul Valmiki Raj Yadav Rajeev Ravindranathan Rajendra Gupta Rajit Kapoor. 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