A banner that produced plays and nurtured talent

It was late Seventies. After two great innings, one under Adi Marzban and the other with INT, I decided to float my own company and called it Burjor Patel Productions. I had not come across any theatre company having the stamp of an individual as their banner.

Did I make the right choice? Was it my ego? Adi Marzban Group performed under the banner Co-operative Players; INT was short for Indian National Theatre; the popular English theatre companies then were called Theatre Group and Theatre Unit. Today, theatre companies go by names like Rage, Akvarious, Silly Point Productions, Out of the Box, Poor Box productions and Balancing Act.

There seems no obvious connection with theatre in the names. What was the philosophy behind these names? I invited two highly successful groups and one a recent entrant to throw light on their choice of names.

Their comments make for interesting reading.Shernaz Patel of Rage said "Rage has many meanings — it means a burning desire or passion, it means a storm, it means something that is currently popular, it also means to have a great time. We thought that encapsulated the work we wanted to do."Akash Khurana of Akvarious said: "I had launched a venture to groom young writers for the nascent television industry which later extended to groom young actors. I had to find a name for my company. The name Akvarious took shape based on my initials AK and my zodiac sign Aquarius.

My sons Akash and Adhar followed me in theatre, both with the same initials AK, which perpetuated the name"Danesh Irani of the recent entrant Silly Point said: "In cricket, there is this fielding position called Silly Point, which is under the batsman's nose. In earlier times, when helmets and other protective gear did not exist, if you get hit by the ball, it could prove fatal. It would be silly to stand in such a position. Generally, the new team members, in order to show how committed they were, agreed to stand in this position. So, when we started we were new and in the firing line and yet took the initiative. Hence, Silly Point Productions."But can a banner on it's own pull audiences?

A new banner is like a new product which takes time to get established. Today some of these banners are assured of a 'Houseful' board on their opening night but ask them how many years it took them to reach there!I thought why confuse the audience with a fancy name.

Also, I did not have the patience to wait, and thought that after two decades in theatre it would be easy for audiences to identify the kind of theatre evening they would expect under my name. The banner in my own name launched, my challenge then was to meet the audience's expectations. For that I had to create a well-knit team of Parsi and Gujarati actors that could fill an auditorium on its own steam. I included my multi-talented wife Ruby and my roly-poly friend Dinyar Contractor whose mere entry on the stage brought ripples of laughter.

Then I picked some outstanding talent from mainstream Gujarati theatre: Paresh Rawal, Tiku Talsania, Daisy Irani; writers Tarak Mehta and Dr Sitanshu Yasahchandra. The gamble of my own name on the banner worked. We drew huge audiences.

Though it's been years since I stopped producing plays, the name of the outfit is still remembered and old-timers who meet me reminisce about the plays they had seen and enjoyed.Rawal became a frontline movie star, Talsania worked in many TV serials, Irani became a celebrity on Singapore TV, Mehta a popular TV writer and Yasahchandra, the recipient of many literary awards at home and abroad. I feel proud today that my banner had some role to play in nurturing their talent.

The author is a well-known stage personality