1. NILAY OZA Founding member, ALTER EGO "From a hobby group, we became a resource team for the theatre set." 2. ROHI MIRZA Producer, BARRIERS "We want to get the mainstream audience to pay attention to us Asian-Americans." 3. ANUVAB PAL Playwright, OUT OF FASHION "My effort is to find a voice for Indian drama in English for mainstream theatre." 4. GEETA CITYGIRL CHOPRA Founder, SALAAM theatrical group "Without ghettoising ourselves, we have to showcase universal themes."

It's not just an act, the play is under way. Earlier this year, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children was staged at the prestigious Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Last month, Anuvab Pal-like Mirza, a producer and a New Yorker-shared top honours at the Sundance equivalent of the prestigious annual Edward Albee Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Alaska for his second play Out of Fashion. More recently, Alter Ego became the first Indian theatre group to stage Oscar-winner Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink.

It gets better. In a few months, the curtain will go up on what will be the first-ever Indian-American production on Broadway: Andrew Lloyd-Webber's magnum opus, Bombay Dreams, in collaboration with British-Asian writer Meera Syal with a budget running into millions of dollars. Even Mira Nair's seminal celluloid venture Monsoon Wedding is set to go the Broadway route. Though currently at the drawing-board stage, it promises to move to New York after Nair wraps up work on her ambitious interpretation of Vanity Fair.

It is doubtless an epoch in the making. "We had an audience in the 1960s and '70s that was interested in India. But that passed and India was forgotten," says Madhur Jaffrey, who has been part of the American theatre circuit for the past four decades. "This time, however, it is different because the theatre movement is driven by talented and young Indian-Americans, not just curious Americans. Since they know the background and the context, they are well positioned to make their mark. This is a big difference between our generation and the current one," she adds.

Pal, who has a degree in dramatic writing from Ohio Wesleyan University agrees. "My effort is to find a voice for contemporary Indian drama written in English for modern mainstream theatre," he says. Last October, his play Chaos Theory was a finalist for the Julliard Playwriting Fellowship and The Public Theatre's New Works Now! Festival. Recently, the Epic Theatre Company staged a reading of his play, Life, Love and EBITDA. "People told me that they had never seen this kind of Indian theatre where English is an Indian language and used with an Indian theme to tell stories that are of relevance not only to America but also to a universal theatre-going audience," says Pal.

Glyn O'Malley, New York-based playwright and chairperson of the selection panel at the Alaska theatre festival this year, is convinced that Pal is emerging as an important element of American theatre. "His is a voice to be nurtured. He can tell stories that no American playwright can. He is also a hybrid who is based here but brings with him the rich tradition of Oxford English. The world he creates is fascinating and needs to be brought to the mainstream," says O'Malley.

MEERA SAYAL Scriptwriter, BOMBAY DREAMS "Theatre is willing to experiment-in material and casting. It gives voice to those who don't find one on television."

Meanwhile, Indian Ink is poised to transform what was a fledgling theatre group comprising part-time actors drawn from the mainstream into a full-scale production house. "The deal with Indian Ink means that for the first time Alter Ego has become a platform for the New York theatre community. From an outlet for those keen to pursue a hobby, we have become a resource group for the theatre community," says Nilay Oza, producer of Indian Ink and founding member of Alter Ego. "For instance, people with a background in finance or in architecture, like me, offer their skills. The actors are all career players. So in future we have our options open and can have our own play," he adds.

In some ways, the Broadway debut is part of a process that was striking root for five years, but has accelerated in the past two years. For a start, while there were only a couple of Indian-American theatre groups a few years ago, the number has more than doubled in New York city alone-an enthusiasm apparent in the South Asian Playwright Festival hosted annually since 2001 by the New-York based Lark Theatre Company in conjunction with the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC). "There is a lot of talent out there, which has come to the fore in the past two-three years. Prior to that the Indian diaspora was a cultural desert," says Aroon Shivdasani, executive director, IAAC.

Not only is the number of theatrical performances going up but increasingly the playwrights and stage artists are beginning to explore new avenues. Shishir Kurup, a Los Angeles-based theatre personality, is one who did so with his Indianised Merchant on Venice, first showcased at the Lark Theatre. "It will be done as a workshop in Lark Theatre next spring and later in Los Angeles. This kind of opportunity has grown in recent years for Indian-American theatre. The play has also got grants from the Kennedy Center and the California Arts Council-all mainstream institutions," says Kurup.

The upsurge in Asian-American theatre has come at a time when American society, as a fallout of the catastrophic events of 9/11, has begun to explore cultures other than its own. "Social consciousness is returning to influence theatre. Americans have realised that they are no longer immune," says O'Malley. "Increasingly, they are becoming more interested in hearing what other cultures have to say."

It is this interest that Geeta Citygirl Chopra wants to tap. "It is crucial for us as a community in the world of American theatre," says 31-year-old Chopra who started her own South Asian League of Artists in America (salaam) in the summer of 2000 after working with a host of theatre groups across the country. Chopra, who believes in making a political statement through theatre, feels there are two ways to hold that attention-adopt the desi route or go the mainstream way. "We have to ensure that we do not ghettoise ourselves. We have to make the best of the opportunity and start writing universal themes," she says.

MIRA NAIR Filmmaker, MONSOON WEDDING "The film is being adapted for the stage and is all set to make it to Broadway. The interest in it is phenomenal."

However, some, like Mirza, have sentimental affiliations with their community's issues. Though keen to break into the mainstream, Mirza is clear she does not want to lose sight of those issues. She has realised it pays-her play on the racial backlash after 9/11, Barriers, had a mainly non-South Asian audience at its debut performance.

Asif Mandavi, playwright and stage actor who has also dabbled in films like Ismail Merchant's Mystic Masseur, too believes that South Asian theatre is necessary to articulate the specific issues of the community. "If the producer sees commercial viability, he will make the play. But South Asians need to support this initiative and go out to see it. It will be a cycle then," says Mandavi, the first to bring the South Asian immigrant experience to the mainstream with his play Sakina's Restaurant.

The success of Nair's Monsoon Wedding and Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham proved that mainstream America is increasingly engaged by Indian-American culture. "Taking a cue from the movies, I feel that people love a good story. The fact that there are Indians in them did not hold back audiences," says Jaffrey. "Also, Indian-

Americans are creeping in from everywhere. We have been invisible for long. We need frontrunners and Bombay Dreams has a chance of doing well."

Michael Johnson Chase, international programme director at the Lark Theatre Company, however, thinks Monsoon Wedding will be the ice-breaker. "It's a matter of time before South Asian theatre goes mainstream," he says. "There are a handful of writers who are bound to get picked up."

It's not just Indians making a mark-even their themes are proving inspirational. Anne Marie Cummings, a New York-based playwright, has taken an American perspective of mixed marriages in her forthcoming play India Dreaming. "Theatre allows us to go deep," she says. "I think Indian-American theatre is becoming bigger. Also, our society craves a deeper understanding. Films began addressing it and theatre is following. Not everyone can travel to India, so art becomes the medium for contact."

By the time the curtain goes up on Bombay Dreams next spring, Indian-American theatre would have had a fair measure of how things are going. Thereafter, it will depend on how the musical does with the Americans.

The clock is ticking, signalling into motion another renaissance.