About
The story of my artistic journey is like a play in 4 acts.
ACT I: I grew up in India, in a Parsi family. My earliest memory of performing in front of an audience is when my mother dressed me up as a “baniya” (shopkeeper) for a costume party - or what we called a fancy dress parade. Later, she dressed me as a cowboy, a bandit, and an assortment other characters. I started acting in plays at school at a very young age, and became a regular in all the annual plays and debating contests.
When I graduated from high school, I enrolled at a university in Hyderabad to study computer science. At the same time, I got involved with the Dramatic Circle Hyderabad, an amateur theater company that performed plays in English. A year and a half into college, I dropped out, and went to Mumbai (at that time it was called Bombay) to work with two well known Parsi commercial theater producers.
ACT II: In 1984, I got admission into Bennington College in Vermont to study Drama. Those first years in America were transformative. In addition to my studies in theater, I took courses in political science, world history, and economics. My view of the world, and myself, completely changed. Later, I got an MFA in Theatre (Acting) from University of California, San Diego, during which I was introduced to the physical theater training of Suzuki Tadashi, an iconic theater director from Japan. I also performed in my first professional production at the La Jolla Playhouse. Upon graduation, I got a job as an actor at the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis. There, I met fellow theater artist and performer, Leslye Orr, and we have been together ever since.
After three years at CTC, I was invited to join the acting company at the Guthrie Theater. I thought I had achieved everything I had set out to do when I left India. I soon discovered that I was wrong. Because I had changed. As someone from a minority culture in India, and then in America, I had always tried to fit in to the mainstream. But, now, I was interested in going deeper into examining my identity as a Parsi and an immigrant. And I felt that I had a voice within me as a creative and generative artist - i.e. writer and director - that I needed to explore.
In 1995, I left the Guthrie to work with companies like Theater Mu, Mixed Blood Theater, and Ragamala Dance. Then, our son, Sam, was born, and I became a father. One day, I had a sudden inspiration to create a solo theater work based on the story of a son and a father that I had heard as a child, called Sohrab and Rustum. My work as a solo artist had begun.
ACT III: In 2001, my wife Leslye and I co-founded the Center for Independent Artists in Minneapolis, a nonprofit arts organization with a mission to provide artists with space, equipment and support to develop their individual projects. That vision gradually evolved, and eventually led to a more personal endeavor. In 2005, Leslye and I bought a dilapidated mixed use commercial property in Saint Paul, which we remodeled into Dreamland Arts, a 40-seat theater attached to our house. We ran the theater for 18 years. During that period, I created and performed in several one man plays, and mentored over a dozen actors, musicians and puppeteers in developing and producing their own solo works (Other Solo Shows).
Over the years, I worked with many nonprofit arts organizations and educational institutions, including COMPAS and Hamline University. Since 2010, I have also been working as an employee at Springboard for the Arts, a nonprofit arts organization that serves artists working in all disciplines.
ACT IV: This act is being written now…