9/5/2023 0 Comments Cineplay theaterThere’s no full-time set designer, for example they are hired on a per-project basis. Maskara says he is now applying his decades of corporate experience to run this cultural enterprise like a tight ship. “Then we found out we had forgotten to shoot something, so there was an extra day’s rent for the studio." They spent too much money and time on lights, editing, colour-correcting during the first production. In the early days, Maskara admits, managing production costs and timings was quite a task. After deducting the cost of production, CinePlay’s share of the profit is split 50-50 with the theatre group. The proceeds, explains Maskara, are first divided equally between the screening venue and CinePlay. It’s in effect a subsidized model in that the actors and directors aren’t paid beforehand. Currently, CinePlay screens two plays each month, with ticket prices going up to ₹ 500. To convince other theatre directors, Maskara had an argument in his arsenal-he was creating a new revenue stream for theatre groups which often complain that the medium is a dying art, no longer commercially viable.Įach CinePlay production costs ₹ 30-50 lakh and is shot over three-four days. Among the first to agree to turn their plays into cineplays were theatre doyens Mahesh Dattani and Lillete Dubey, as well as more experimental theatre groups like Akarsh Khurana’s Akvarious Productions. Documenting their plays was an idea that appealed to some theatre directors. Till date, they have made five cineplays, and five more are in various stages of production. Ltd as a subsidiary of Chhoti Production and began converting theatre plays into film productions, starting with Between The Lines. In April 2013, Maskara and Das co-founded CinePlay Digital Pvt. CinePlay-a portmanteau of cinema and plays-“is easy on the tongue and it sounds like something you might have heard of before but actually you haven’t", she says. “They may revive the play at some point, but theatre is also such an actors’ medium."ĭas even came up with the name for the venture. There are so many plays we want to watch, like we see old movies or listen to old songs, but can’t," she says. “They (Farooq Shaikh and Shabana Azmi, the lead pair) have done 500 shows of Tumhari Amrita but there isn’t a single recording anywhere. The death of veteran actor Farooq Shaikh in December squashed any last traces of doubt in her mind. Photo: Dinesh Parab/Mintīy and by, Das bought into the intent of documenting performances for posterity and taking these plays to audiences beyond the urban, upper middle class set. View Full Image Co-founders Subodh Maskara and Nandita Das reviewing posters for some cineplays at their Mumbai home. That’s what sparked the idea of cineplays-they would film the play and organize screenings when they couldn’t travel for a live show. Maskara started thinking about how he could take his stage play to more performance venues and festivals despite the constraints. Any fewer shows and it wouldn’t have made financial sense to go," he says. “A 40-show tour in the US would have meant at least 12 weekends of packed travel and performance schedules. ![]() Maskara and Das had to turn some of them down, including a US tour. There were offers to perform Between The Lines abroad. In 2012, Das directed her first theatre production and Maskara made his acting debut in Between The Lines. Das thought Chhoti Production would enable her to work on more directorial projects. Maskara, who had by then become chairman of Polygenta (he left in 2013), hoped this venture would allow him to spend more time with his newborn. That same year, Maskara and Das, now 44, launched Chhoti Production Co., their film and theatre venture. The evening went so well that the couple were soon married and a year later, in 2010, their son, Vihaan, was born. ![]() None of it seemed at all likely, till he went on a blind date in August 2009 with actor Nandita Das. In 2002, he began an eight-year stint as managing director of Polygenta Technologies Ltd, a company co-founded by his father, Santosh, in the 1980s it now recycles plastic soft-drink bottles to make polyester yarn. That is, he could not envisage this life while he was doing a master’s in business administration at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, US, in the mid-1990s, or even when he was struggling to launch a number of start-ups, from an events management company to a white goods firm (“A lot of them didn’t do well, to be honest," he says).
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