Ma Ashbei : Broadway comes to India,thru Calcutta Broadway

Sometime in July’20, two youngsters, Sounak and Samya, came to meet me, to discuss a Project they had thought of doing, which was an open ended but a highly topical concept in their minds, but the budget was completely beyond them. But they were very keen to do it. They wanted to get some well-known artistes roped in, whom they had access to and wanted to make a musical film, creating a story around the advent of Durga Puja, particularly during the pandemic, which had casted a lot of aspersions in the minds of people. I found it pretty close to my original passion of creating an Indianized Broadway through my brand Calcutta Broadway and I thought if I can market it as one with their concept, which was pretty open ended till then, it would also match with my original thought process of bringing in Broadway to Bengal.

The budget was very high. I realised one of the reasons they came to meet me was for funds. I sat with my digital marketing, SEO, website marketing and the story telling team to understand whether my positioning could be attained. The story lines had a few young boys and girls discussing Durga Puja, whether it will happen this year at all, then leading to various formats of dance, music, acting, inter spread in a film production format, with well-known artistes rendering their voices and percussions with some recitation in it etc. I wanted to experiment with selling tickets and thought the collection from ticket sales can be given to the backstage workers and technicians who are suffering hugely during this pandemic and that will be very much in line with Calcutta Broadway ethos, as I had by then already thought of paying for the entire Production costs, including the artistes etc. This thought was very satisfying to me and that made me commit the money and finance the Project entirely.

Sounak-Samya also got a great platform to present their talent,not only on their specific skills,but also as an Organiser of such a mega event,and worked very hard to make it happen.

All in all,it was a great team effort by one and all. The digital team made us reach about 100,000 people around the world,and Calcutta Broadway reached USA,UK,Australia,etc.,which was satisfying.

Huge support we got from well known artistes of  Theatre,Music,Dance fraternity,which helped us to make it a popular event on 17th.October2020,and Calcutta Broadway took a decisive step in its journey to offer high quality events and contribute all its proceeds to philanthropy,which is what it stands for. This combination is what distinguishes Calcutta Broadway from any other such Organisation.Calcutta Broadway belongs to the BDG Foundation group(www.bdgfoundation.org).

You will see us into this kind of offering every year from now on.This has also established a full service team for Calcutta Broadway,which can deliver any event globally thru  BDG FIREBRANDS.