Theatre personalities of Gujarat infused the advanced technicalities of theatre and their ethnic culture to form their entertaining Gujarati theatre. The theatre personalities of Gujarat used the various types of Gujarati theatre and laid the modern Gujarati Theatre`s foundation in the late 1980s. These theatre personalities of Gujarat brought western techniques and themes as well as music to form a renewed vernacular theatre, which of course led to the development of Gujarati Theatre. Thus, the original plays like "Kumar Ki Chhat Par" and "Kahat Kabira" by renowned theatre personalities of Gujarat like Madhurai, Vinayak Purohit, Shiv Kumar Joshi and others were revived.
The theatre personalities of Gujarat played popular Gujarati plays like Rustom, Jabuli and Sorab, which are based on the popular dramatic tale of Shah Nama. They are considered as the beginning of Gujarati theatre. The theatre personalities of Gujarat first staged their play at the Grant Road Theatre of Bombay on October 29 in 1853. Now, there has been a significant development in the theatre of Gujarat, owing to the effort of the theatre personalities of Gujarat. They did experimental and street theatre work of Hasmukh Baradi`s Garage Theatre. The theatre personalities of Gujarat took issues, which are raised in Gujarati theatre, such as the bride price, witches, women`s health, alcoholism, vaccination and many others.
The Gujarati theatre actors got exposure when the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Mumbai) and the Bombay State Competitions held between 1950 and 1960 provided most of the projects to the professional Gujarati theatre. For example, Pravin Joshi and Sarita Joshi, Vijay Dutt and Kanti Madia were launched in the 1953 competition. In the same way, some of the intercollegiate competitions organized by the Indian National Theatre in 1975-78 gave break to the talents like Mahendra Joshi, Paresh Raval, Mukesh Raval, Siddharth Randeria, Homi Wadia, Sameer Khakhar, Nikita Shah, Sujata Mehta, Daisy Rani and Latesh Shah. Now, they are trying to establish younger generation of theatre professionals.
Senior and popular theatre personalities of Gujarat like Jaya Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha also ventured in the famous Gujarati theatre production house named the Sanjay Goradia production. People of Gujarat love to patronize their mother-tongue plays and hence theatre personalities of Gujarat have taken up this career as very serious and lucrative business in metros like Mumbai. Gujarati theatre is more than 150 years old and the theatre personalities of Gujarat have seen a lot of changes with an inclination to the new generation and trends. The audience has loved the performances of theatre personalities of Gujarat like Siddharth Randeria, Feroz Bhagat, Dilip Joshi, Tiku Talsania, Padmarani and Apara Mehta in the Gujarati Theatres.
In the time period of 1930 to 1970, many of the theatre personalities of Gujarat worked for the development of the new Gujarati theatre. Some of the most famous theatre personalities of Gujarat are Jayshanker Sundari, Rashiklal Parikh, Jayanti Dalal, Jyotindra Dave, Krishnalal Shreedharani, Dhansukhlal Mehta, Jashvant Thakar, Gunvantrai Acharya, Manubhai Pancholi - Darshak, Shivkumar Joshi, Dhananjaya Thakar, Chunilal Madia, Goverdhan Panchal, Jayanti Patel, Markand Bhatt, Pranajivan Pathak, Yeshvant Pandya, Paramsukh Pandya, Durgesh Shukla, Indulal Gandhi, Batubhai Umarwadia, Bhaskar Vora, Raghuvir Chowdhary, Chinu Modi, Labhshanker Jadavji Thakar, Hasmukh Baradi and many others.
The new Gujarati Theatre boasts some of the finest theatre personalities of Gujarat in the arena of acting like Dina Pathak Gandhi, Nalini Mehta, Anasuya Sutaria, Jashvant Thakar, Krinalal, Kailash Pandya, P. Khasrani, Urmila Bhatt, Markand Bhatt, Pranasukh Nayak, Dhananjay Thakar, Jyoti Vaidya and many others.
