A new role play

In a quiet western Mumbai suburb, eleven youngsters are trying hard to laugh. They are among the 14 students taking lessons at the acting academy started by film actor Anupam Kher.

"Laughter is the most difficult thing for an actor; tragedy is silent while comedy is loud," explains Kher to his batch. The lesson comes from a man who won four Filmfare trophies in the 'Best Comedian' category in the 1990s. Today, Kher plays the new role, that of the founder of the acting school Actor Prepares, with equal aplomb.

Kher knows that acting is no laughing matter. It's not surprising then that he went through 500 applications from which 50 potential students made it to the interview. And three months ago, 14 of them were enrolled in the school.

Actor Prepares follows a six-day week and holds classes in yoga, speech and diction, dance, martial arts and music. Guest lecturers include actors Mita Vashisht, Seema Biswas and Govind Namdeo.

The time-table changes every 15 days and there are strict rules to be followed. Kher, as the head of the acting school, is very unlike the easy-going principal he portrayed in the 1998 Karan Johar film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

He's already thrown a student out of the school for coming late to classes and for being unkempt. "Any institution that teaches art needs focus, order and discipline. It requires a certain kind of dictatorial regime," he believes.

The Anupam Kher classes do not come cheap. The students are charged Rs 1,20,000 for a three month course. This includes a portfolio, meals and a uniform.

Explains Kher, "I have arrogance about my school and if I am offering the best, I think it is fair that the students pay for it."

The next batch begins in April but Kher is already receiving requests to franchise his acting school not only in India but also in the UK. However, he has no plans to expand operations for the next year and a half.

To be sure, Actor Prepares is not Kher's first brush with teaching. The National School of Drama (NSD) graduate (1978 batch) taught drama in Lucknow for a brief while.

However, he hit the Hindi film screen with Saransh (1984) and impressed film critics with his acting prowess. "It is sad that there are not many professionally run acting schools," he rues. "We only have places that teach acting for Hindi films," observes Kher, who's been at the helm of affairs at NSD as well as at the film censor board in the past.

Actor Prepares is not Mumbai's first private acting school. Bollywood stars like Padmini Kolhapure, Asha Parekh and Namit Kapur have also been running acting schools.

So what makes Actor Prepares different? "Just as one can distinguish a Kellogg, Harvard or an Oxford graduate from the rest, the day people start recognising a graduate from Actor Prepares, I will consider it to be my biggest achievement."