Now watch regional theatre on OTT

In April this year Shreyas Talpade, known for his perfect comic timing in films, ventured into producing plays with Nine Rasa, an OTT platform for theatre. He is focused on bringing clean family content to the unique theatre streaming platform, says Shreyas.

"I want families to sit together on weekends and watch plays on Nine Rasa. I don't want them to cringe when they watch the content. Plays have always been a family kind of content. We cannot have any obscene content or cuss words in these theatrical performances. I want families to just relax and enjoy the content," he maintains.

"Personally, I am not in favour of cuss words. Even in films, I only use them when I am really asked by my director. Otherwise, I try and avoid it. For Nina Rasa, we tell the scriptwriters to ideally avoid such words. If they really want to use it, we tell them to use a generic word. If it's really required then we come out with the disclaimer that it is meant for 18-plus audience," he said.

The unique OTT platform has 12 plays streaming this month including "Pashmina", "Aarush Marush", "Saheb Ji Darling" and "Paul" among Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati plays. In future the app plans to introduce other languages like Bengali, Telugu and Malayalam plays. About three plays are uploaded every month along with the play's audio podcast.

"The last time I acted was in 2004 in an English play titled 'Anything Called Love', an adaption of a Marathi play. After that, I got my first film, 'Iqbal' and my journey in films began," recalls Shreyas.

The actor misses theatre and is geared up to face the stage lights again with his own production. "I am excited about getting back to the stage. I would very soon be a part of Nine Rasa. We are looking for a script where I can be a part of. I guess people prefer me doing a little bit of comedy, so I will be doing something in that format," he informed.

He started Nine Rasa to help the theatre community. "It all started in the pandemic to help the theatre community. I started working on the idea in May 2019 and launched it on April 9, 2020. There are times like the pandemic that actually push you out of your comfort zone. It's not only about giving money or food to the artistes. Every artiste wants to eventually perform and learn. I realised that when everything is going digital, then why not theatre?" said Shreyas.

All the content created for this app is original. Shreyas plans to have a similar kind of ecosystem for online theatre as OTT web series and films.

"It's exactly like any other OTT platform. We call for scripts and shortlist them, and then commission those projects to producers. They have to set up the entire play and bring it to our auditorium to shoot. Right now, we have taken the responsibility of shooting the plays because we wanted a template. We do post-production on it as a film and then upload it. In future we will commission the shooting part."

"OTT is never going to die. It has become an addiction,” he says but adds that doesn't have any OTT projects. His film roster, though, is full. My next release would be 'Manu Aur Munni Ki Shaadi' and Mahesh Manjrekar's Marathi love story 'Mrigtrishna'," signed off Shreyas.