Vishaal Asrani reveals challenges, apprehensions about directing Masha and the Bear LIVE: ‘We had to…’ | Exclusive

Vishaal Asrani, singer and theatre artist, who is popularly known for directing shows like Dreamworks' Madagascar, The Wizards of OZ, and the popular Jungle Book live in India, has brought another popular kids show, Masha and the Bear LIVE to India. 

In an exclusive conversation with DNA, Vishaal Asrani, the head of VAIPA, talked about the idea behind directing the show and the challenges he faced while directing the show. He also revealed the response to the shows in Mumbai. 

Vishaal revealed that he didn't want to make the show and said, "The idea was given to me by Viacom 18, they approached me and at first my gut feeling was no because I had never watched an episode for the Masha And the Bear, and then I watched a couple of episodes and fell completely in love with the characters and the rest is history and I'm ad I did it ... it has been fun." 

Talking about his first reaction after watching Masha and the Bear, he said, "My first reaction was I wish I was a kid again and subtly it had so many beautiful messages such as loving animals and kindness and compassion which are important in today's world and it was fun, the music the characters and animation is adorable, and I just wished to be a kid and watch it from a child's perspective because as an adult I was appreciating the beauty of everything but as a child, I would've been jumping with joy and wanted to copy everything happening on the screen."

Talking about the biggest challenge he faced while directing the show, Vishaal said, "The challenges one faces with bringing any show to the theatre which is quite famous is trying to keep the characters as close to the original which makes them iconic in their own way to start with. The reason Masha is so popular is that Masha is Masha, now you can't bring Masha on the page when she looks different and sounds different ...we had to make it look like Masha, sound like Masha and we had to make huge costumes and everything was fabricated and done here in Mumbai and the actor has to wear that costume to dance and emote and sing, so all of this was a huge challenge." 

He added, "It was very clear in our head that we cannot take any liberty of deviating from the original beauty of the character. Bringing life on stage, bringing one hour of a musical that was action-packed, because dealing with children is so little that even in that one hour if there's no action or fun the minute they turn away they'll say Mummy I want to go the loo I want to go out ...We had a fantastic team, we had brilliant directors, we had brilliant dancers we have Viacom which have been the best producers to work with which have never told me no for anything we've wanted be it an extra set of lights, a larger lead, so it was just a dream team to work with and also we've been doing children show for years so we know the pulse of what children want, we know the age group we know the categories of what kids like to watch. So that was not a big challenge and along with the dream team  the challenge became much easier."

Talking about the response to the theatre show, Vishaal said, "Mumbai audiences are brilliant, Today the world has become such a smaller space due to cheaper flights and the internet and even due to the other platforms. We expect nothing less and it is only fair that if we're going to bring down an international show to bring it up to national show standard, we succeed... I mean I'm most particular about my own work, I would sit for nights and nights and not be able to sleep if I did not replicate what I actually had in my mind and I think the audiences here loved it, the parents were getting up and dancing and that I made happy because we finally got quality time happening with parents and children in a live setting and not in a way that the child is watching something on the screen and the parent is doing something else." 

He added, "So it was a nice family outing that was created together and we have interaction between characters and the audiences happening, we had kids standing and dancing to the songs and the parents are copying steps with their kids, the toys are thrown to the audiences, but it's just lovely to watch smiling faces of the kids and more so parents saying oh this is what we should do with our kids rather than making them watch the screen."