Theatre is my Jam ft. Rahil Shah

"At Prithvi and NCPA, I was introduced to a very intimate experience, to being with that character, feeling what the character is feeling. I would be the first in the line, and in the second or third row. And with all of these plays, you know, somehow the experiences are very, very rich. Fulfilling." Rahil Shah, Art-repreneuer from Baroda on his love affair with theatre and Akvarious.

You are a little bit of a mystery figure. News of this guy who takes plays to Baroda floats around in Bombay, but not many people know why. So, what is your relationship with theatre? Where did it start?

Okay, this will be a bit of a long story. I came to Bombay for my graduation in 2007. I was in HR college, in a hostel close to Chowpatty.

I absolutely loved Mumbai in general, my marine drive jogs and everything. It was lovely. I took up chartered accountancy because I would take many attempts to clear it and that would extend my stay there.

And in 2010, is my first memory of an English play that completely moved me. It was the Akvarious Production of A Guy Thing with Ali [Fazal] and Neil [Bhoopalam].

It was at NCPA experimental and I have this clear visual of sitting in the eighth row in the centre and watching that play. And it did something to me.

After that I was very regular at Prithvi and NCPA throughout my stint in Bombay, till 2013.

Unfortunately, I cleared my CA in the first attempt. So, I was chucked out of the city very soon. But I watched a lot of theatre in that period. And simultaneously, my brother, Rachit, was in Pune. And he was actually an actor, he would participate in Karandaks. And he came back in 2013 and said there is this play called Piya Behrupiya, that it’s a phenomenal show and we should bring it to Baroda.

So we - two young boys, early 20s, knew nothing - started Stagomaniacs. We booked this 578-seater in Baroda, and sold out the show. Two months later, we brought RAGE Productions’ One on One and then we did Cinematograph’s Nothing Like Lear with Vinay Pathak. All three sold out, all three very well received.

And that was the beginning.

With the RAGE Productions team from One on One, 2013. One of many curtain calls!

That’s a fantastic story! But, what is the emotional attachment to theatre?

So, different things. In Baroda, there was always a very strong Gujarati theatre scene. Mostly comedies, the 1000-seater experience, you know? And it is still very strong and active. But there were certain things that were different when I compared it with my NCPA and Prithvi experiences.

At Prithvi and NCPA, I was introduced to a very intimate experience, to being with that character, feeling what the character is feeling. And somehow those experiences really spoke to me.

In the 2012-18 period, I was watching a lot of theatre. If you just take Akvarious plays, I think I watched 7 or 8 of their plays at Comedy Store, Palladium. Internal Affairs, Super 8, Jumpstart.

I would be the first in the line, and in the second or third row. And with all of these plays, you know, somehow the experiences were very, very rich. Fulfilling.

I still don’t get it. There are people who live in Bombay who have never watched a play, and here you are saying you watched plays every week.

It’s funny you say this. In HR college, I had so many friends from Bombay, right? In my class of 120 students, probably 20 were from outside, 100 were from Bombay. And most of the 100 people had never been to Prithvi or NCPA.

In fact, a lot of them saw a play for the first time with me. I was always surprised about that.

Maybe it’s because I’m a teetotaller? So for me, Bombay evenings had to be something other than the usual go and have a drink somewhere with friends.

That's so interesting! Because we keep saying that there's nothing to do in a city, you only end up going out eating and drinking. But you're clearly an example of the fact that there is lots to do outside of gastronomic delights.

100%.

And why do you think people don’t watch plays? Do you have a theory?

I do. I personally feel like their daily schedules, Monday to Friday, are so fried. That for some reason, Saturday and Sunday, they are not making that effort.

Also, I think a mediocre experience or two can put people off. Unfortunately, theatre has a much slimmer margin of error than other endeavours.

If I observe my Baroda experience, the issue is of perception, I guess? If I say English theatre, half the audience is turned off by the idea of Shakespeare, the language, the datedness or the foreign-ness, things like that.

So when we did Piya Behrupiya or Nothing Like Lear, though it was Shakespeare, it was way more palatable. I think that’s something to think about, for producers and directors everywhere, not just Baroda.

But back to Bombay, even today, I still introduce someone to theatre for the first time every year. If I take two new people to a play, they are like, I've been in this city for 35 years. This is the first time I'm watching a play. And it boggles my mind.

Speaking of the difference - or perhaps the similarities - between Bombay and Baroda, how do you ‘sell’ plays in Baroda?

The database at work

Right from the start, we were trying to build a database. Today in my phone, if you just type ‘ticket’, you will find 500 contacts, which should ideally convert to 2000 tickets.

The plays we invite, their directors or producers are always very surprised when I say that 108 seats sold on day one. But that's my first broadcast, right? The first 100-150 seats, it's always very easy.

The thing with Baroda there's a lot of FOMO culture, like in any typical small town. “If they are going, then we should also be seen at that event.”

And secondly, “I want to be in the best seat in the house”. That is the reason we don’t do free seating shows. It helps sell the first 70% of the house very quickly. The flip is that the balance rest 30% is the toughest to sell. Then our sell is that every seat is a good seat and a seat is better than no seat!

And lastly, we only get one show every three months. So there’s a hunger for it already. There’s just not enough.

The eventual goal is... We want to get to a place where we have a database of 10,000 people who will come to four different shows each month. And it's not the same 250 people coming to each show, but different people coming for different shows.

I mean, I'm sure you'll pull it off.

100%

Okay I want to go away from theatre now a little bit. What is your real business? What do you do in life?

Okay, so, this is how I usually respond to this question.

I dabble with three different things - one is my bread, the other is butter, the third is jam.

My bread is the chemical distribution business. Boring, but fills your stomach.

My butter is a baby apparel brand that I run. Okay. An online startup called Zeezeezoo, quirky baby apparel. That keeps my creative juices flowing.

And jam is theatre, right? Jam is indulgence. It's never going to make you money or anything, but it's always extremely satisfying.

Hahahahahaha! And how do you balance this?

So, again, a small-town theory. Shaily, my wife, is from Bombay. She always says, in Bombay, you can't imagine more than two meetings a day, right? But here, since you're not in traffic for one and a half hours, you give those 90 minutes to something else, and you can make it work. Everybody has that time, you just have to put it in the priority list. It's absolutely manageable.

I run a very lovely team with Zeezeezoo. We're doing really well.

The chemical distribution business is something that I've been leading for 10 years now. And it's kind of settled.

Enviable. Since you brought up your wife, I believe there’s a very interesting story about your wedding that - in my view at least - illustrates your passion for theatre more than anything. You want to share it? You know what I’m talking about…?

Yes, I think so. Okay. So this is 2019. We were getting married.

And you know, marriages in India have insane budgets. And I was like, I don't want to spend on food and decor, which are basically the biggest expenses.

I wanted to fill it with experiences.

In 2017 or 18, I had watched Dekh Behen in Cuckoo Club with 35 people. And it stayed with me.

I promised myself that I'll do this play at my wedding. I didn't have a wife then, I didn’t have a fiancé, but I did have a play that I wanted to host.

The invitation

And when Shaily and I decided to get married and stay in Baroda, remember Gujarat is a dry state. People go to Udaipur and Daman and Bombay to do their bachelors. We did a Dry State Bachelors and hosted Dekh Behen as part of that night. For friends and cousins only, for obvious reasons.

On the second night, we hosted a band from Hyderabad, fantastic band called Threeory.

And the next day, we did not do a traditional wedding, but we did a spoken word wedding. So, with UnErase Poetry, we created a show with Priya Malik, Simar Singh, Ramneek Singh and Rakesh Tiwari. We worked on this production for like, four or five months and it was a 70-minute spoken word show that culminated in us taking our own, customised vows.

And at that show - well actually our wedding! - one of the guests, was Mr. Dalmia. who called me and asked, “Yaar, tu pehle bhi theatre host karta tha, ab nahi karta, why did you stop?” So, I said, sir, this is probably because of, you know, it was not making economic sense. I mean we were never in it for the money, but losing it was also not making sense.

He said, okay, let's do this together. And that's when the second leg of my theatre started.

I guess it’s safe to say that this marriage united more than two souls. But tell me about the economic sense bit? We usually only talk about success stories, but there are always failed attempts behind every one of those.

So, the first few times when my brother and I wanted to host plays, we were independent, right? We didn't have our own money.

So we went from one sponsor to another; we created proposals for some 10 different real estate companies, different corporates saying, “Hey! Do you want to sponsor this play?” Because one thing was clear that box office would never cover the cost. So, box office will cover 50%, and 50% we get from sponsorships.

The first three plays, we found one person who would give us 1 lakh rupees, because they knew my father. But the main response was “Your event will reach 300, 400, 500 eyeballs, right? And I am getting proposals of a music concert that would reach 5000 on an evening or 10,000 eyeballs an evening, right? So economically, it doesn't make sense for me to give you the kind of money you are asking for…”

So after the first few years, we had to stop. Until we found a wonderful partner in Mr. Dalmia.

Although, I also want to say that what we didn’t count on was the feedback, even in the early days. I keep telling Akarsh “Boss, you do the magic, you do the work, we take the accolades, we take the appreciation.” So we do make a lot of social currency, we do get rich that way.

Talk about some of this social currency.

Rahil Shah basking in shared glory.

So I guess my biggest example would be Shaily? Like I said, Shaily is from Bombay, but she saw her first play through me.

I’m not saying she fell in love with me because of a play, but I guess it helped?

8 months before the wedding, we went to Rishikesh and we built this presentation for the family, a proper pitch presentation, where I was like, yaar, let's fill our wedding with a lot of experiences. Okay?

Whatever the budget is, let’s say my decor guy is saying this much, let's cut 80% of that and put it on wedding experiences. Our wedding had the shittiest decor because we didn't care about it.

But everybody talks about Rakesh Tiwari saying those vows. Right?

Diwali Affairs

And that sort of tradition has continued with our Diwali parties. Last year, we hosted External Affairs. As our Diwali Party.

Because I am like, bro, we are calling 100 people, we are feeding people 2000 rupees ka khana. But they don't need it! And they are already going to 10 parties in 7 days.

So, why not give a give an experience like this? So ya, last year, External Affairs. And this year, we did DB2 [Dekh Behen Part 2]. Man, what a night! I am going to hear about DB2 for the rest of the year.

Till next Diwali.

100%

Okay now this is an unfair question. Can you give me your top 3 theatre experiences?

That’s extremely unfair!

So, I think it would have to be small productions. That’s one of the things I love about Akvarious is that they bloody do shows anywhere. So, they don't care if there are 10, 20 or 30 people in the audience.

When we did DB2 here, for Diwali, people were like “Damn, we were in the room with the girls.” And “I was one of the girls!”

So these intimate experiences are what stay with me.

The team of The F Word with Rahil and the Dalmias

To your question, I’d say Every Brilliant Thing, What Planet Are You On?, and The F Word.

I am also lucky because I have to get the censor certificates for the plays. So, I get to read the scripts beforehand.

I think The F Word is I think one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. So good. So balanced.

Just randomly just pick three pages, he is just talking about Istanbul, or they are talking about their life growing up... Every scene is moving and substantial. And what Akash sir does at the end. Oh my God.

So, I think these smaller experiences would top my list rather than The Sound of Music or The Phantom of the Opera and things like that. Great spectacles, but the others stayed with me.

Though I have to say that from a spectacle, production-wise POV, the one that moved me was Life of Pi at NMACC. The projection work in that show was insane!

And is there a play that you brought down that surprised you? With its performance or the audience reaction…

So, I personally watch every play that we bring to Baroda. Whenever I watch a play and I meet Mr. Dalmia, who's also seen my Instagram story, he would ask, "Kaisa laga?"

And then I tell him, “Sir, I have two answers for it. One is, mujhe kaisa laga? And two is, mujhe Baroda ke liye kaisa laga? Which are very different answers.”

Because it’s pressure! I'm judging every play as it’s being performed. Whether I’m enjoying it or not, I'm thinking whether A-Row, B-Row, C-Row will enjoy it.

And the last one that we did. The Palestinian play – And Here I Am.

Oh, boy. What response! It was their fifth show in India, the closing show on their tour. I'm guessing this was their best show in terms of audience feedback. And it's inexplicable.

We did a Q&A after the show, and everyone stayed back! Q&A ko bandh karna padha. Matlab people still wanted to be there, wanted to ask more.

Firstly, people were in awe of the play. Fantastic performer; autobiographical play, as in, it’s his life and the things he’s been through; about this topic… And secondly people were shocked ke yaar aapko permission kaise mili Baroda mein perform karne ki.

But it was a just such a human story, that it connected. That was really surprising.

Amazing! They will be thrilled to hear that. Tell me about your working relationship with The Ark Foundation. Because everyone dreams of having a partner, a patron like that.

Right. So a little context first. Baroda has some of the best artists and painters, globally. 40 or 50 percent of Indian art that has gotten international acclaim has been by painters from Baroda. This is fact.

Mr. Dalmia is deeply involved with art - as a consumer, investor, and advocate. His core belief is that art uniquely captures the reality of its time, a message he works hard to spread. With the Ark Foundation, he aims to significantly push creative boundaries. He challenges me to seek out plays that are deliberately unsettling and thought-provoking, saying, "Don't worry, don't overthink it." I have my personal anxieties before each show, but his support is unwavering. There is a lot of freedom and trust between us. And that's where the alchemy is. Touch wood.

The Page 3 validation that changed the game

That’s invaluable. Wonderful to have a supporter like that.

100%

So what plans going ahead?

Now Mr. Dalmia is creating a city museum. Like an NMACC for Baroda. With a permanent museum, all the galleries and a black box.

This will open in late-2027 or 2028. And everything we are doing now is basically laying the groundwork for that. We are creating databases of groups, of artists, of audience. We have built our own ticketing system on the Ark Foundation website... And with the plays also, we keep trying new things to reach people.

The team from What Planet Are You On? with some fans

What we did with What Planet Are You On? was fantastic. We did two shows back to back. We reached out to schools and we got one to buy 33 tickets, another bought 12 tickets. When we realised the response wasn’t great on that route, we reached out to WhatsApp groups of the teacher community and put messages there. And we sold out both shows.

That’s an entirely new audience segment. So, the Foundation is in this for the long haul. The structure and everything is laid out really well.

Looking forward to it. When you said you reached out to the teachers' WhatsApp groups, that pushes me to another question. Do you think that that is an issue in the way theatre positions itself to an audience?

Yeah, sometimes I completely feel that. Yeah. Sometimes people are like being too intellectual in the description of the play. I'm like, where are your buzzwords? Where are those words that would make me click the booking link? People want to just over intellectualise what they've created, but it's actually not required. What is required is how to get the people in.

Audience feedback!

For The F Word, the audiences that actually came for only the fun part have given me the best feedback. A 24-year-old, a 31-year-old who I would never have thought would be interested in this dialogue-heavy play about family and growing up and things like that… They had the most interesting and appreciative things to say afterwards.

But only because we were able to get them in when they were probably looking for something else.

Whatever it takes to get the guys in.

It's not like we’re misleading them or we're, you know, showing a different show from what we've written about. But we've got their curiosity. Made sure that we've gotten them in.

Do you think it helps when you're not attached to the play? Because you have just watched the play, not spent six weeks in rehearsal, etc?

It’s true that I have not invested my whole life in it. I've not seen the other side. But if I've decided to get something to Baroda, I’m equally attached to the play. There's a lot of effort behind it and in different ways, it is my play. I have equal ownership.

So what do people have to do to come to Baroda and get your equal ownership? Is there a process?

First of all, I watch the plays myself. Every month, at least one weekend, I'm in Bombay. I’ve made sure some of the suppliers from my 2 businesses are Bombay-based so I can keep coming to meet them on Fridays and stay back to watch plays over the weekend. So the Mumbai theatre scene is always on my radar.

One major blind spot for us currently is that we don’t know a lot about what happens outside Bombay, right?

Hosting the team of Piya Behrupiya

That will change when the Museum and Black Box comes up, we’ll have to have a curator, maybe more curators, especially for dance and music which I’m not very aware of.

At the moment, to be honest, I already know the next six shows I want to bring. But I'm doing very little now. I need to move gradually, systematically, balance the audience appetite.

From my point of view, it’s really two things. One, the production has to be good. And two, the people should be good to work with. There needs to be an open flow of communication, dialogue, mutual respect, and everyone should want to come and perform and make it a good experience for all concerned - us and the audience.

I’ve had conversations with groups who are very opaque, who are prohibitive either in terms of costs or dates. I’m not saying compromise, but there needs to be a willingness to discuss.

One Akvarious show, I remember. Their flight was 2.5 or 3 hours late. They were due to land at 9.30am for a 6pm show. At 10am, I am on a call with Akarsh. And he said, “Tu chinta mat kar. We will do the show and it will be fine. If we have to, we will use the headlights from the cars in the parking lot and perform there. You don’t worry.”

I mean, the comfort... That's the whole difference...

And that's something we also reciprocate, right? I'm there at the airport or the station to receive people. I drop them at six in the morning also. I make sure they get the best Baroda experience.

Having their fill of theatre, food and good company

Theatre is warm and intimate. And it's about relationships. It's about people. Ultimately, if we’re showing the human story, then it can’t be transactional. There has to be respect on both sides because both of us are doing an incredible, difficult thing.

100%. And now last question. What is your wish for Akvarious for the next 25 years?

Oh, they better keep giving me their Diwali Party productions. They better be writing a lot.

I personally have this opinion; I like their originals better than the adaptations. So, more and more originals from the Akvarious family. That would be lovely.

Rishta pucca!

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