Chasing dreams

Sunil Vishnu K, founder of Chennai-based theatre company Evam, talks about his group’s success story, adapting Five Point Someone into a play and roping in author Chetan Bhagat for a cameo.

When Sunil Vishnu K, a commerce graduate from Bhopal met Karthik Kumar, a chemical graduate from Chennai at the Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA) in Ahmedabad in 2006, little did he know that his life would change forever. Though both the youngsters had taken admission in the premier institute to pursue their MBA in marketing communications, their passion for theatre brought them together. They not only revived MICA’s theatre group Sankalp but also did a joint thesis on the feasibility of an entertainment company with theatre as the core offering. But rather than limiting this subject to just a thesis, they actually decided to turn it into reality. After completing their education, they took up corporate jobs to make their capital. Finally in 2003, the duo quit their respective jobs and moved to Chennai to set up their dream company, Evam.

Today after eight years, they have not only staged several plays in various parts of the country but also have a thriving business that aims to make the world happier. They conduct ‘happy factory corporate shows’ whereby they create entertainment content for stakeholders of various multi-national companies and also conduct workshops, specialised training modules for corporates and interactions with students.

Interestingly, the name Evam was derived from a Bengali play — Evam Indrajit written by renowned Bengali dramatist and director Badal Sarkar — that Sunil and Karthik had performed at MICA.

Explaining his company’s ideology, Sunil says, “We are not trained actors but we love storytelling. The whole idea was to set up a company that would connect and empower youngsters to participate in theatre. Since the last decade, there is a pre-conceived notion among people that theatre is an art form that appeals only to a niche audience. But we wanted to dispel that myth with Evam.”

Initially, the group started adapting humorous works of UK and US writers. “The idea was to attract audiences to theatre and generate interest,” adds Sunil. Once they were successful in doing that, they started focussing on doing a play that was set in the Indian milieu to which youngsters could relate in terms of characters and story. That’s when they came up with the idea of staging Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone. But rather than directing it themselves, they decided to produce it four years ago when another theatre group Midas Players staged the play in Chennai and Bengaluru. “It was more of a test run,” says Sunil. But seeing the potential of the book, he decided to take matters in his own hand. “Five Point Someone is easily the largest-selling work of fiction in Indian English writing of this decade. It’s an entertaining and engaging story so we thought of reviving the project in October 2009. We approached Chetan and sought his help. His advice was simple: Remain true to the story,” he elaborates.

Sunil and his troupe roped in six writers from different age groups to retain the novel’s flavour in the play and started sending Chetan drafts regularly. The entrepreneur also stepped into the picture as the director and roped in a new cast that comprised professional actors as well as newbies. “There are several people who come from different professions but have a passion for theatre. We went to Bengaluru for auditions and specifically selected such individuals who were new to acting as we wanted a certain rawness to the play,” says Sunil.

But ask the director if he was under any pressure to meet the audience’s expectations as 3 Idiots that was also based on the same novel went on to break several box-office records and he says, “When we were creating the play in October 2009, we didn’t have a clue about the film. We were not under any pressure while putting together the performance as our focus was to condense the 200-page novel into a two-hour play. It’s a simple story about three friends and their experiences at IIT. So we focussed on creating the memories of the protagonists through lighting and followed a simple design on the stage. “

The play finally premiered on January 24 last year at IIT Chennai and got a stupendous response. Since then, it has had 40-45 shows across India and each time the audiences have been an eclectic mix of former IIT students, current engineering students and youngsters.

As for the major challenges that Sunil and his cast followed, the director smiles and says, “Usually theatre companies work on plays that are written by people who are dead or unreachable. But here everything was right in front of us. We had to stay true to a writer who exists here and now and not be tempted to change the tone of the book in our play.”

Since last year, the play has evolved constantly. Not only new actors have been added but they have also incorporated local lingo in their dialogues depending on the place where the production was being staged.

But the highlight of the play, when it premieres in Mumbai on February 25, is the author’s cameo in it. This is the first time Chetan Bhagat will be seen on stage. “We were exploring to do it for quite some time. The idea is simple: It’s Chetan’s work out there on which our play is based so we just want to use the opportunity to explore him,” signs off Sunil on a light note.

Five Point Someone will premiere at Mumbai’s National Centre for Performing Arts on February 25.