Best remembered for his legacy as director of National School of Drama in Delhi, where he served the longest tenure ever (1962-77), veteran icon from theatre and the arts, Ebrahim Alkazi breathed his last after succumbing to a heart attack in a hospital in the National Capital yesterday. He played a key role in shaping the world of theatre in Mumbai in the 1940s and 50s. Theatre old-timers and chroniclers in the city will recall his imprint on stagings of Shakespeare and Ibsen’s works, as well as Greek tragedies.

Born into Arab parentage in Pune in 1925, Alkazi arrived in Mumbai to study arts at St Xavier’s College. It is where he met Sultan ‘Bobby’ Padamsee (Alyque Padamsee’s elder brother) and joined his English-language theatre group. Later, he headed to England, to study theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in England before returning to Mumbai to begin his own group called the Theatre Unit in the 40s and 50s.