With over 40 shows scheduled until July (and more being added to the list) Akvarious Productions is turning into one of the most prolific theatre groups in the country. Find out how the young team makes it work

Once upon a time, not too long ago, Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms ruled every TV channel with their saas-bahu babble. The production house earned awards and their actors and actresses acquired fame. Soon enough, Balaji came to be associated with the word 'prolific'. On the Mumbai theatre scene, Akarsh Akvarious Khurana's Akvarious Productions seems to be going the same way. In the last ten years, they have had 32 productions.


The core team of Akvarious Productions at their adda, Akvarium.
PICs/Santosh Nagwekar

This year, they've already premiered four new plays, and in the next three months, the group has more than 40 shows planned. Last month, at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META), they bagged four prestigious awards. We decided to ask the 31-year-old actor-director-producer-playwright, who also managed to fit in a wedding in his busy schedule, where he intends to go from here.

Aren't 40 shows in three months too much by Mumbai theatre standards?
It's too less, no? Ideally, I would love to do 365 shows a year, Okay, make that 300, 365 shows makes it sound like a corporate job. But even if there are 50-odd shows, they are of five or six different plays, so the load is reduced on the actor. See, May is a particularly busy time because of Summertime (at Prithvi) and we were aiming to have about 20 shows for it. Also, I usually land up travelling to Bangalore in May and October / November. So that's how the numbers add up.