Netru, Indru, Naalai

Netru, Indru, Naalai was a series of musical theatre performances, that were held in Chennai, India by acclaimed Indian film director Mani Ratnam. Choreography for the show was provided by Kala and Brinda. It had an equally large number of spectators with unconfirmed reports of close to 12,000 coming to watch.

Conceptualized first in 2000, the original show was supposed to be a one off event in order to help The Banyan raise funds for its building corpus fund. The very first had the likes of Revathi Menon and Aamir Khan, then dubbing for Lagaan in Chennai, engaging the audiences to a rivetting show that was held at the Indian Airlines stadium in Chennai.

The next show was held at Indian Institute of Technology Madras in December 2002. It had an approximate audience of about 10,000 spectators. The format was similar to the first show, with songs and dances through the ages. The exclusive television rights were given the STAR Vijay, a subsidiary of Star TV.

In February 2006, the third installment Netru, Indru, Naalai, a Broadway musical style tribute to the Tamil filmdom premiered at the Jeppiar Engineering College, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Directed by Mani Ratnam, the three-hour song, dance, and drama extravaganza brings to life definitive celluloid moments from Tamil cinema, across its different eras (Netru (yesterday), Indru (today), and Naalai (tomorrow)), to the stage. The show features 100 dancers, as well as actors and actresses from across the country. Acclaimed film and theatre composer A. R. Rahman has composed a special song for the show, and other notable technicians involved in the production include art director Sabu Cyril, and award winning director/cinematographer Rajiv Menon.

...
Wikipedia