''Netru, Indru, Naalai'' () was a series of musical theatre performances that were held in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India, by Indian film director

Mani Ratnam Gopala Ratnam Subramaniam (born 2 June 1956), known professionally as Mani Ratnam, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema and few Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. Ratnam has won six ...

. Choreography for the show was provided by Kala and Brinda. There were unconfirmed reports of close to 12,000 people attending the show.

Overview

Conceptualized first in 2000, the original show was supposed to be a one off event in order to help

The Banyan The Banyan is a non-governmental organization based in Chennai, India was founded in 1993 by Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar to cater to the mentally ill and homeless women in the city. This includes emergency care and critical time i ...

raise funds for its building corpus fund. It featured

Revathi Menon Asha Kelunni Nair (born 8 July 1966), better known by her stage name Revathi, is an Indian actress and director, known for her works predominantly in Tamil & Malayalam cinema - in addition to Telugu, Hindi & Kannada films. She has won seve ...

and

Aamir Khan Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan (; born 14 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who works in Hindi films. Through his career spanning over 30 years, Khan has established himself as one of the most notable actors of Indian ci ...

and was held at the

Indian Airlines Indian Airlines was a division of Air India Limited. It was based in Delhi and focused primarily on domestic routes, along with several international services to neighbouring countries in Asia. It was a division of Air India Limited after m ...

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 television rights were given to

STAR Vijay Star Vijay is an Indian Tamil language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly Star India), a subsidiary of Asianet Star Communications. The channel's headquarters is in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Star Vijay change ...

. In February 2006, the third installment ''Netru, Indru, Naalai'', a

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

musical style tribute to the Tamil filmdom premiered at the Jeppiar Engineering College, in

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

. Directed by

, the three-hour song, dance, and drama extravaganza brought to life definitive celluloid moments from

Tamil cinema Tamil cinema, also known as Kollywood is a part of Indian Cinema; primarily engaged in production of motion pictures in the Tamil language. Based out of the Kodambakkam neighbourhood in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, it is popularly called ''Kollywo ...

, across its different eras (Netru (yesterday), Indru (today), and Naalai (tomorrow)), to the stage. The show featured 100 dancers, as well as actors and actresses from across the country. Acclaimed film and theatre composer A. R. Rahman had 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 Rajiv Menon (born 20 April 1963) is an Indian filmmaker who has worked as a director and cinematographer in several Indian regional film industries. After making his breakthrough as a film cinematographer with Mani Ratnam's drama ''Bombay'' (19 ...

. The stage musical marked the first

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

production directed by Mani Ratnam.

Personalities

Film personalities, mainly from

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

and Malayalam cinema, who took part in one or more of the shows include: * Kamal Haasan * Vijay *

R. Madhavan Ranganathan Madhavan (born 1 June 1970) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, director, and producer who predominantly appears in Tamil and Hindi films. Madhavan has won four Filmfare Awards South and three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. Madhava ...

* Vikram *

Mohanlal Mohanlal Viswanathan (born 21 May 1960), known mononymously as Mohanlal, is an Indian actor, film producer, playback singer, film distributor, and director who predominantly works in Malayalam cinema besides also having sporadically app ...

Asin Thottumkal Asin Thottumkal (born 26 October 1985), known mononymously as Asin, is a former Indian actress who appeared predominantly in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu films. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. She has received three Filmfare Awards. She be ...

Abhishek Bachchan Abhishek Bachchan (born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and the grandson of poet Harivansh Rai Bach ...

* Prakash Raj * Bharath *

Shriya Saran Shriya Saran Bhatnagar (; born 11 September 1982) is an Indian actress who works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi-language films. Although Saran aspired to become a well-known dancer, she became an actress with her film debut in 2001 ...

Sindhu Tolani Sindhu Tolani is an Indian actress working in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi language films. Tolani was born in Mumbai, India on 19 July 1983. She has been a '' Fair & Lovely'' cream model in North India. Film career Sindhu Tolani started ...

Kiran Rathod Kiran Rathod (born 11 January 1981) is an Indian actress. She has acted in Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada films. Early life Rathod was born on 11 January 1981 in Jaipur. She is a cousin of actress Raveena Tandon. Rathod graduated ...

* Pooja *

Sadha Sadaf Mohammed Sayed, also known by her stage name Sadha, is an Indian actress who mainly appears in Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada films. She was introduced to the Telugu film industry by the director Teja along with Nithiin in the film '' Jayam ...

* Malavika * Rohini *

Vivek Vivek (or Bibek/Bivek in some regions) (विवेक in Devanagari script) is a masculine given name that is popular in South Asia, particularly in India and Nepal. It is of Sanskrit origin and means "wisdom" and/or "conscience". Vivek may refe ...

* Genelia D'Souza * Sridevi *

Vineeth Vineeth Radhakrishnan (born 23 August 1969) is an Indian actor, classical dancer, voice artist and choreographer who primarily works in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu language films. He has also starred in a few Kannada and Bollywood films. He h ...

* Abbas *

Shaam Syria ( Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 ''Sura/i''; gr, Συρία) or Sham ( ar, ٱلشَّام, ash-Shām) is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other ...

Vivek Oberoi Vivek Anand Oberoi (born 3 September 1976) is an Indian actor who mainly works in Hindi cinema, in addition to working in few Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil films. Early life Vivek Oberoi was born in Hyderabad, Telangana, to a Pu ...

Silambarasan Silambarasan Thesingu Rajendar, nicknamed as Simbu or his initials S. T. R., is an Indian actor, filmmaker and musician in Tamil cinema. He began his acting career by playing roles as a child artist in films directed by his father T. Rajendar, b ...

* Laila *

Simran Simran (Gurmukhi: ਸਿਮਰਨ; hi, सिमरण, सिमरन ; from Sanskrit: , ''smaraṇa'', 'to remember, reminisce, recollect'), in spirituality, is a Sanskrit word referring to the continuous remembrance of the finest aspect of ...

* Srikanth *

Shobana Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai (born 21 March 1970) is an Indian actress and Bharatanatyam dancer. She acts predominantly in Malayalam films along with Telugu and Tamil films with few Hindi, Kannada and English films. She has won two National Fil ...

Arya Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...

* Bhanupriya * Sandhya * Reema Sen *

Shilpa Shetty Shilpa Shetty Kundra (born Ashwini Shetty; Née Shetty; 8 June 1975) is an Indian actress who works mainly in Hindi-language films. Shetty made her screen debut in the thriller ''Baazigar'' (1993) which garnered her nominations for two Filmfa ...

Harini Harini may refer to: * Harini (singer), South Indian film playback singer * Harini (Kannada actress) Harini is a former actress in the Kannada cinema. She was active during the 1950s and 1960s, retiring at the peak of her career. As of 2006 sh ...

* Sujatha Mohan

References

External links

Netru Indru Naalai
2006 musicals Indian musicals {{musical-theat-stub