Lagan Magan

Mr. Apple

A riveting Gujarati drama exploring Steve Jobs' turbulent relationship with his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. How do you measure greatness — by brilliance alone, or by the complexities that shape a person? Mr. Apple, written by Shishir Ramavat and directed by Manoj Shah, sits with the extraordinary yet deeply flawed life of the iconic entrepreneur behind Apple Inc. Jobs is universally celebrated as the visionary who revolutionised technology and birthed the digital age, but his personal journey was marked by contradictions and poignant ironies. Abandoned by his biological parents, he tragically repeated the cycle with his own daughter Lisa, whom he initially refused to acknowledge as his child. The play captures their explosive, often heartbreaking relationship through intense confrontations, deep-seated bitterness, cathartic meltdowns, and eventual moments of tenderness and reconciliation. Rather than depicting a conventional father-daughter narrative, Mr. Apple portrays how human relationships are never purely black or white but painted in nuanced shades of grey. It does more than celebrate Steve Jobs' brilliance — it courageously reveals his vulnerabilities and emotional struggles, offering a humane portrayal of the man behind the legend. As audiences witness the human inside the icon, the play invites introspection into identity, legacy, and the universal quest for connection and acceptance. Designed by Kabir Thakore with music by Amit Bhavsar and lights by Inaayat Sami, performed by Disha Savla Upadhyay, Alpesh Dixit, and Pinkesh Prajapati.

Adbhut

The Wonder Within

A solo Gujarati adaptation of Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe — one of the most performed plays in the world — reimagined for Indian audiences by Satchit Puranik and directed by Manoj Shah. The original play premiered at the Ludlow Fringe Festival in 2013 with Donahoe performing, before transferring to London and an HBO special. It has since been staged thousands of times worldwide. Puranik's Gujarati adaptation transforms the play's cultural texture — Doordarshan evenings replace Saturday morning cartoons, garba nights replace school dances — while preserving its radical theatrical form: the audience is the cast. From the moment the play begins, the boundary between performer and audience dissolves. RJ Devaki guides the room through the story of a girl who, at age seven, begins a list of every brilliant thing worth living for as a way to pull her mother back from the edge of depression. The list grows as the girl grows, through adolescence, heartbreak, marriage, and the quiet weight of adulthood. With nothing but a chair, a Daffy Duck sweatshirt, and extraordinary presence, Devaki turns strangers in the audience into co-performers, drawing out laughter, silence, and tears in equal measure. Adbhut is not a lecture on mental health — it is a lived experience of it, told with the warmth of someone who understands that sadness and wonder can occupy the same breath.

iSchool

An Ideas Unlimited production directed by Manoj Shah.

Kaagdo

Happiness Decoded

Imagine a world where being happy is a crime. That is the reality in Kaagdo — a biting satire named after the Gujarati folk tale Anandi Kaagdo (The Happy Crow), in which a crow is punished by a king but gleefully sings and enjoys every punishment. The play follows a man — a humble, barefoot government worker in a striped sweater — whose wife has died, whose daughter lives abroad, who owns nothing of consequence, and who is inexplicably, unshakeably content. This is considered suspicious. He is taken to court. A relentless lawyer is brought in to interrogate this anomaly, to crack open this man’s happiness and find the secret formula the world believes must exist. Written by Geeta Manek and directed by Manoj Shah, Kaagdo draws from Japanese ikigai, Sufism, and Zen Buddhism to ask the simplest and most destabilising question in modern life: what if happiness is not something you chase, but something you already have? Jay Upadhyay plays the contented man with a warmth that makes his happiness feel not naive but earned. Unnati Gala plays his daughter — successful, modern, perpetually updating — who cannot understand why her father refuses to want more. The Hindu’s theatre critic Vikram Phukan described the play as an ‘existential parable’ that is ‘not didactic in its approach.’ Shah himself said: ‘Even sadness is a tradition of happiness, which ultimately can be found within us.’

Third Bell

Let's See Ourselves on Stage

In theatre tradition, the third bell signals that the show is about to start. But what if that bell never rings? What if the real drama is already unfolding in the seats of the auditorium? Third Bell is a meta-theatrical celebration of the audience — a series of conversations, confessions, arguments, and revelations between strangers and companions, all waiting for a performance to begin. A married couple whose argument about a bathroom break turns into a conversation about love, memory, and missed anniversaries. A grieving widow and a guarded painter who spark an unexpected friendship. Two men sitting beside each other who might be a bumbling impresario and a spy — or just very committed audience members. A first date on the edge of implosion. A father and daughter tangled in generational expectations. A narrator and director trying, and failing, to keep everything on schedule. Written by Ishan Doshi and directed by Manoj Shah, Third Bell is a tribute to those who come to watch, wait, wonder, and maybe find a little bit of themselves before the curtain rises.

Bombay Flower

The Untold Story of Ruttie Petit and Muhammad Ali Jinnah

A tribute to the legendary Parsi theatre — Bombay Flower tells the astonishingly daring story of Ruttie Petit (1900–1929), the fiercely independent daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, second baronet, who at eighteen married the era's most divisive political figure: Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a man more than two decades her senior. Given the sobriquet 'Bombay Flower' by Sarojini Naidu, Ruttie's exuberance fills the first half of the play — her rebellion against family, faith, and Parsi society to marry for love. In the second half, shunned by her parents and increasingly isolated by Jinnah's consuming political ambitions, she becomes an embittered woman who finds solace in theosophy, opium, and solitary wanderings across Europe. She died at twenty-nine. Written by Geeta Manek and drawn from Sheela Reddy's Mr and Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, the play took four years to develop. It began as a one-woman show before Manoj Shah brought in Jinnah, then Ruttie's parents, his sister Fatima, and their friend Kanji Dwarkadas. Bhamini Oza Gandhi leads as Ruttie, with Vishal Shah as Jinnah. The play premiered to a full house at the Experimental Theatre, NCPA on March 26, 2023 — an NCPA co-production. Bombay Flower is dedicated to Parsi theatre, which Manoj Shah discovered to be the pioneer of both Gujarati and Urdu theatre during his research for Master Phoolmani in 1999. It asks a question that remains relevant: why would an intelligent, sensitive young woman from a privileged background risk everything for a man whose world was entirely different from hers?