Mumbai: The city of Bollywood dreams is also a city of rejections and struggles. It wakes each morning with promises bright enough to draw a million hopeful artists to its streets. By nightfall, its casting rooms and crowded locals quietly crush just as many hearts, leaving talent stranded between ambition and rejection. Their stories are widely known but remain invisible. Poet and theatre director Danish Husain has now set up a monthly stage for these artists to speak about what it really means to be a Bollywood struggler.
On 20 December, a dim lit studio in Versova hosted the third edition of ‘Backstage with Danish Husain’. Eight talented dreamers showcased their art for theatre and acting through semi-autobiographical performances. Husain mentors these artists, aiming to keep their originality intact.
The show peels back the glamour to reveal the discipline, doubt, and deep love for performance that sustains an actor’s life. Rooted in honesty and reflection, it celebrates theatre as a lifelong practice, rather than a shortcut to fame. With a ticket costing Rs 500, the audience gets to live the artists’ life for a night.
Performances in December showcased the struggles of outsiders through humour and melancholy. With merely ten minutes to perform, these eight actors had the audience spellbound.
Husain opened the evening by addressing the audience. “This city is very gruelling and cruel. In this space, artists can deliver their own stories through their performances or conversations or stories,” he said. “The whole idea is to create a safe space. The tickets that you buy goes towards supporting the artists.”
Captivating performances
Puneet Khanna, director of Netflix drama, Ginny Weds Sunny, took to the stage after 23 years. He presented an excerpt from his diary about his dream to come to Mumbai.
“You don’t know how cold the streets of Mumbai are, until you sleep on them,” he said. He shared his experiences of not getting work, not earning enough to eat proper meals and having sleepless, restless nights.
He shared an anecdote about receiving a call in 2005 from the office of the casting director working on Don: The Chase Begins Again. Khanna reached 15 minutes before call time and waited five hours before he was spotted by the casting director. She quickly spoke to her assistants and signed him. He ended his story by sharing that the same night he went to a restaurant and had a proper meal after very long.
But the evening began on a more humorous note with Vinay Waghela, presenting his piece on luck, stepping on imaginary faeces at Versova beach. It instantly drew the attention of his audience. Waghela held their gaze throughout his performance, which was all about how important luck is for actors trying to make a name in Mumbai.
He told the story of a popular actor’s assistant. He received a TV role after the actor dozed off and he was left attending to a guest—a popular director. The director cast him for the role instead.
Waghela, who moved to Mumbai from Bhopal four years ago, now lives in the narrow lanes of Versova. His hopes of being an actor are sustained by the small roles he gets in advertisements and plays.
Neelam Singh, a young girl from Assam, oldest daughter of a small restaurant owner, depicted the struggles of a thin dusky-skinned hopeful. Her play had the least amount of dialogue, yet took the audience on an emotional journey. From a new-born girl who had to live up to the expectations of her parents to convincing her father into letting her move to Mumbai for better job opportunities.
She effortlessly transitioned through each stage of life, captivating her audience. The last act, two minutes long, encapsulated the essence of an actor’s life—from the difficulties of finding a place to live to facing rejections on the basis of looks.
Singh moved to Mumbai in 2023 at the age of 20. “The last part of my performace is actually from my own experiences at auditions. I go for a lot of modelling audtitions and I am routinely told that I am too skinny or too dusky,” she told ThePrint.
Another act that indulged the audience was the shayaris presented by Neeraj Neer. From life, to love, to a simple kiss, his couplets drew not only applause but also laughter and conversations among the audience. Neer, who is from Varanasi, lives with his brother in suburban Mumbai.
The night concluded on a musical note with Chitman Mughate on a harmonium. From lessons on life, rejections, denial and death, Mughate presented Kabir’s Dohe as songs, adding his own tunes.
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Behind Backstage
Danish Husain is creating space for people who rebel at home, leave their families behind and move to a city like Mumbai to be artists. The seeds of Backstage was sown last year, when he welcomed a few artists to his house in Madh Island to showcase their talent and share their stories. It got a great response.
“That’s when the idea of turning it into a ticketed event came to life, with the proceeds of the show going to the artists,” he said.
His friend Krishan Jagota was the one who came up with the name ‘Backstage with Danish Husain’. Backstage is a place that the audience cannot access. They are not aware of what happens there. It became a metaphor for a peep into the lives of these artists.
“We can kind of give a window, a peep, into this life as to what artists are doing. What are their struggles? What are their dreams? What are their pitfalls? What are the clichés that they have to live? What are the ceilings that they need to break? What are the aspirations that they need to acquire? What are the biases that they suffer? What are the prejudices that they face?” Husain told ThePrint.
Backstage falls somewhere between an open mic and rehearsed directed performances. It is not open to all and neither does Danish sit with the artists for rehearsals. There is an element of curation as performers apply every month with a brief of their stories.
“I kind of give feedback to stories that don’t work. Maybe, you know, this is what is lacking in your story. The idea is not really to take control or appropriate other people’s stories. The idea is to just kind of chisel it, polish it, just kind of make it more effective in terms of performances,” Husain said.
Once the eight stories are selected for the backstage edition, the artists sit through a mentoring session with Husain at his residence. He shares his experience as a storyteller with the artists and the lessons he has learned in 20-odd years of performing stories, while also sharing with them a few hacks.
The event is not censored at all. And it’s always in an intimate space with 40-50 people in the audience.
With the next edition on 31 January, “Backstage with Danish Husain” is providing “support and refuge” to struggling artists with a story to share.
“The idea is to create a space which reeks of possibility, collaboration, healing and realising that there are more people like us. My purpose is basically to create a space which provides a refuge, in this gruelling, harsh place,” Husain told ThePrint.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)