Barry John (theatre director)
| Barry John | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1944 (age 73) Coventry, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Theatre director, actor, designer, writer, teacher |
| Website | www.bjas.in |
Barry John (born 1944) is a British born, Indian theatre director and teacher, who was the Founder-Director of 'Theatre Action Group' (TAG) (1973), one of the early theatre groups based in Delhi. In 1997, he launched Imago Media Company, along with Sanjay Sujitabh, and also started Imago Acting School in Delhi, both of which moved to Mumbai in March 2007. The school also got him recognition, as some of the alumni went on to become Bollywood actors, including Shahrukh Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Samir Soni and Shiney Ahuja, as well as Hollywood stars like Freida Pinto and one of the top 10 US media companies CEO Samir Arora. He has been based in India since 1969. After moving to Mumbai his acting school was opened in Mumbai as 'The Barry John Acting Studio', situated in Andheri.
He was awarded the 1993 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Theatre Direction by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance and Theatre, and also the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award.
Barry John was born in 1944, in the industrial city of Coventry of West Midlands county, England. His father, an engineer by profession, joined the navy during the world War II and his mother was a home-maker, and his younger sister was Christine.
By the age of 12, he had started selling newspapers, and pursued theatre in the evenings. At 15, his father fixed up a job for him at the factory where he worked. After finishing his schooling, he moved to London, but unable to find place in acting schools, he joined Leeds University at Leeds, West Yorkshire. There he trained to become a theatre teacher, for three years under John Hutchson, the head of department.
Deeply influenced by India, and its culture, during the Hippie era, he even delved into the Upanishads. Then in 1968, Pandit Ravi Shankar staged a concert at the Coventry Cathedral, a few days later, he saw an ad in the newspapers for a teaching job in India, to which he applied. Thus at age of 22 he landed in Bangalore, where he stayed for the next two years, teaching English during the day at Regional Institute of English on Cunningham Road, and doing radio programmes. Evenings were for amateur theatre, with Bangalore Amateur Dramatics Society and the Bangalore Little Theatre. After arriving in Delhi in 1970, he joined the 'Yatrik' theatre group, staying at the YMCA hostel and working as a freelance teacher in schools and colleges.
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